


I'd Chose You, No Matter the Odds

by BeautifullyLovely



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:55:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 28,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6017386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifullyLovely/pseuds/BeautifullyLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I've loved you in many different ways, in many different universes. There are some in which we fight and some in which we laugh. There are others where I die early, and you're left without me, and rare ones where you die first. Don't judge, but I hate those the most. I can't help but be selfish that way. </p><p>In all this complexity and strangeness--you a fashion icon, a magician, a traveler, even, though you'd laugh to hear it, a saint--there is one constant. </p><p>And that is you and me. </p><p>Multiple stories from my tumblr. Examples include: Isabelle watching her brother gather up the courage to ask for a date, late night pillow fights that turn into sexy romps, and Magnus staring out the window, trying to figure out what to do now that Alec won't be coming home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Come On Baby, Show Me What You Got

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec keeps Magnus awake.

Alec couldn’t help it. He just–he couldn’t sleep. Who could right after a hunt? 

He didn’t think his insomnia deserved a pillow to the head, which Magnus was in the process of administering. Magnus’ loud grown of displeasure at being kept awake by Alec’s constant questioning had snowballed into a half-hearted attack by the weapon called pillow. 

It was pretty weak for a weapon, but Magnus was relentless. 

“Stop.” Alec said, laughing in a way that clearly opposed his own words. Magnus, tired from a long day of idiot clients with their near catastrophes, finally felt a grin pull at the corners of his lips for what seemed like the first time that day.

“No.” He said, all haughty and fake superior, and in that moment he could have been mistaken for a child, not the centuries old being that he was. 

Alec, with his shadowhunter reflexes, whipped his own pillow out from behind his head and immediately engaged war. 

He should have been beating Magnus soundly–for all his magic and charm, Magnus still had the speed of a mundane, but everything was evening out pretty well, because Magnus was distracting. Alec would take a pillow to the face just to catch a glimpse of him like this. 

Like this–in creased silk pajamas, makeup gone except for a light smear left around the rings of his eyes, his hair a tangle of glinting strands. He was wild and fierce and, for once, none of his movements were calculated even though they could be. It would get a person killed, going into battle like that. 

This was very obviously not a battle, not from Magnus’ perspective. Alec felt his desire to win–to be the best, the best, must be the best–diminish in the face of his boyfriend’s overwhelming glee. 

Alec let himself get taken down, Magnus’ body pressed flush against his, hip to hip, and he was right where he wanted to be.

Magnus sat his pillow gently on top of Alec’s face, kind even in his victory. Alec brushed it off onto the floor. They were horizontal across the bed, Alec’s neck bending uncomfortably off the edge. 

He flipped them over, at the same time pulling Magnus down by the scoop in the lower point of his back, right over his ass, so that his head would be supported on the mattress. Alec watched Magnus give an appreciative glance at his strength, before dissolving into giggles as his shoulders and legs smacked inelegantly on the bedspread due to Alec’s quick movements. 

Alec almost paused in his journey to Magnus’ throat, finally within reach, by the sound coming out of his boyfriend mouth, traveling up from his chest. He was a small earthquake, joy coming out in every indrawn breath. Giggling. That was new. 

Magnus smiled; Magnus laughed. Alec had made Magnus laugh before, and, honestly, he would be worried if he hadn’t. But giggling? 

It was entirely undignified, and, if anything, Magnus was dignified. That was what he was most, in Alec’s mind. Who was this person? 

How could Alec bring him out more?

“Sorry.” Magnus gasped, his giggles dissolving. No, Alec thought. Keep laughing. I did that. I did that. “I’m very tired. It was a long day.” 

Alec knew Magnus didn’t like being watched when he was like this–hated it, even–but Alec couldn’t look away. It was as if Magnus was aging years, decades, in seconds, his face changing to support all this experience he had been tricked for a moment into forgetting. 

“Don’t apologize.” Alec said. It should have been light. It should have been an easy dismissal. That was what Magnus was searching for, anyway. Alec knew, even as he said it, that the words came out serious, like a brand. A rune. Something that was permanent, something that couldn’t be taken back. 

Magnus twitched, struck by something new. Alec didn’t know if it was a good twitch or a bad twitch. Hadn’t even known that it could be good until Magnus gently took his hand and led him into this world he had never experienced but was forever grateful to now have. 

Alec leaned down, until they were breathing the same air. His nose brushed Magnus’–a skim, a tap. Magnus’ body rolled, as if seeking escape.

Alec hadn’t realized that this could be suffocating for him, being this close, Alec’s arms on each of his sides. He moved to pull away, let Magnus breathe his own breath.

Magnus yanked him back. It hurt. It didn’t hurt. “You are the worst person I’ve ever meet.” Magnus said. 

It was playful, his lips curving, like he was trying to recapture the easy, childish fun that had been lost the second Alec threw him onto his back. Part of it worked, Alec’s lips unable to fight curling up in a mirror image of Magnus’ own. 

Part of it didn’t, because Magnus had whispered the words between them, unintentionally turning them into something sacred. A secret buried in them, an unexpected depth. Alec looked at Magnus, at those eyes– 

Those smart, perceptive eyes, and he understood that maybe it hadn’t been unintentional at all. 

Because he wanted to, Alec kissed him, and Magnus accepted the kiss with a readiness unknown to shadowhunters. They had always, after all, been a people that were fast to action but slow to love. 

It was a deep kiss, the kind that led to other things. Alec wrapped his arms tight around Magnus and sighed into it. 

Magnus bit softly at the corner of Alec’s jaw to get his attention. He liked to bite, Alec had learned, but he was always careful about it. No one needed to know if Alec didn’t want them to. 

“You should fuck me.” Magnus said, heavy against his ear. 

Alec twitched. Magnus had never been blunt like Alec, always finding these beautiful turns of phrase that Alec would tie up in knots if he ever tried to use them. It took a lot to make Magnus talk so straight-forwardly, put everything on the line like that without the least bit of subterfuge. 

“Yeah, OK.” Alec scrambled back, giving Magnus room to take off his pants. 

Magnus smiled at Alec’s enthusiasm, peeling his clothes off with a grace Alec had never attempted. The movement was angled so that Alec’s eyes were drawn to all the right places. 

He grabbed the lube when Magnus mentioned it, trying to pull himself out of whatever daze he had entered. Magnus offered his hand for it, but Alec paused, his fingers held tightly around the bottle, warming it. 

Magnus had been sweet about Alec’s lack of experience when it came to sex, teasing him gently while pulling him to bed. It had been embarrassing–anything you did with someone who was clearly an expert to your novice had to be–but thrilling all the same.

Magnus had tried his best to make it not the big deal that it so clearly was. Or, at least, the big deal it was to Alec. He treated it like a desert platter, all these numerous things you could do with someone else’s naked body, and picked for them both when Alec was hampered by indecision. 

They had rubbed against each other slowly, drawing back to savor the pleasure and coming forward again to take. Magnus had gone down on him, clever mouth wrapped around his cock, a wet-heat pressure that made Alec cry out even though he was trying to be silent. Alec had returned the favor, Magnus looking shocked but pleased as Alec trailed down his stomach and nosed at his thighs. 

They had fucked each other, though it had taken time to reach that part. Magnus had smiled a wicked smile, while his eyes searched Alec out, trying to see what Alec wanted when he wouldn’t open up his mouth. “I’m flexible.” Magnus had said, after Alec awkwardly tried to ask if there was some sort of gay protocol that other gays and bisexuals just instinctively knew, about topping and bottoming and positions and just how to thrust in time with a partner and whatever else. 

“Have you watched porn?” Magnus had asked him. Alec blushed–which sucked, there was no way blushing was sexy–and told him yes. 

“Alec.” Magnus had kissed his cheek, right where it burned red. “Unless you have a secret career you haven’t mentioned, you’re not a porn star. Neither am I. If you have to ask for me to move my leg because it is digging into your spleen, I won’t judge you.” It was such a Magnus thing to say–dramatic and wacky but all together comforting first and foremost. 

“Alright.” Alec had said, picking up his shreds of confidence and dropping his leftover pride to the floor along with the rest of his clothes. That night Magnus had climbed onto Alec like a vine around a pole, and they had fucked until they both forgot their names. Alec had come laughing and without breath. 

“Alec?” Magnus questioned. He was looking from the lube to Alec with bewilderment. 

“I–” Alec scratched at his cheek. “Can I do it for you?” 

Magnus had done it for him, fingers slick between his legs, touch soft when he entered. Alec had tried it on himself a month earlier, sure that with Magnus’ boundless energy they would eventually reach the point where they would do it together. It was different, though, Magnus’ touch, despite all the movements being the same. More personal. 

Magnus paused, his eyes locking onto Alec’s. For a second, Alec thought he saw him shake. 

“Alright.” Magnus finally said. 

He crawled over to where Alec was sitting on the bed, back against the headboard, on hands and knees. The hair on Alec’s neck raised, his mouth dried, his cock flushed. Magnus smiled, knowing just what he was doing. It should have been a submissive movement, but it held a silky kind of strength, like a panther prowling silently through the trees. 

He reached Alec after a breathless moment, wrapping his arms around his neck and straddling his legs. He pressed a cheek to the top of Alec’s head. Alec sighed, feeling steadier now that Magnus was in his arms. 

“Go ahead.” Magnus whispered. 

Alec was careful not to do something stupid, like drop the bottle or somehow smack Magnus in the side with his elbow. It still felt like minutes were passing, just him slicking his fingers while Magnus’ hands played with the hair at the nape of his neck. 

When he trailed a touch down the crease of Magnus’ ass, he felt Magnus tense. It was barely perceptible, that incremental tightening of muscles, but Alec was an expert in the body. He was a shadowhunter, after all. 

“Are you OK?” 

“Fine.” Magnus replied. “Keep going.” 

He wasn’t delicate. Alec knew that. He also didn’t want to appear delicate, and Alec knew that too. It was something he understood. 

He still let his touch go gentle, as feather-light as someone who had grown up killing could muster, pushing into Magnus’ walls with one great hitching movement. 

He felt Magnus’ strings pull tight and then snap. He pushed back hard on Alec’s fingers, that single fearful second over and gone. 

Alec followed his cues as best he could, making his thrusts rougher, giving Magnus what he wanted. Magnus let out a choked breath near Alec’s temple, his knees wobbling, and Alec felt his own heart beat: heavy and loud in the open air, something he normally took for granted. 

Magnus’ nails dug into the back of his neck as he pulled out his fingers, and Alec took the sting of them with gratitude. 

“How do you want to do this?” Alec asked, easy and blunt. He felt good, here with Magnus, felt like they could do anything they wanted right now in this moment. 

Magnus grinned at him, shaking his head. “You’ve already kept me awake.” He said. "I want to at least lay down.“ So they did, Alec’s arm wrapped around Magnus’ waist, each of them on their sides. 

It took a few thrusts, a few grinding movements, but soon they were back in that rhythm they had wordlessly chosen together after the first few times. Magnus’ ankle twined around Alec’s like a promise. “Keep going.” Magnus murmured, and this time he sounded nothing but content. 

It was amazing to Alec, that he could do this. That he could bring Magnus and himself down into this place of warmth and heat and satisfaction. He vowed to never take it for granted. 

He could feel his muscles starting to pull tight, and he clumsily sought out Magnus’ cock with a sweat-soaked hand. Alec couldn’t help it–he moaned when Magnus hissed between his teeth, slamming his body back into Alec’s, like if they pushed into each other hard enough there would still be some essence of each other left on the other’s skin long after they finished. 

Alec’s nerves all fizzed out as one, his breath gone as he tipped over. Magnus’ ankle tightened on his. “Alec,” Magnus said. 

Alec was on it. He pulled out with care, his hands writing runes of comfort and love onto Magnus’ skin. Permanent, even if they couldn’t be seen by anyone else but them.

He had been embarrassed, the first time he came early, as if it was the end of the world. All his focus had been on himself–if he looked stupid, if Magnus was judging him (a dumb thing to think). That haze of embarrassment was at the back of his mind now, but he pushed it aside, because it did nothing. 

Right now, he needed to focus on Magnus. 

He bit at the sides of Magnus’ hips, salty with sweat, and listened for the sound of Magnus’ heel pushing desperately into the bed sheets. His fingers trailed down into Alec’s hair, twining through the strands. His eyes shone. He quaked when Alec breathed on his cock. 

Yeah. Alec had this. 

Magnus’ leg thrust forward, the toes straightening out into perfect points, as Alec took him in his mouth. “You’re good at this.” Magnus sighed out against the mattress, his face half-pressed into the sheets. 

Alec almost chuckled. There were things he wanted to be good at before, but this hadn’t been one of them, not until recently. It was a private act for Alec, something only between him and Magnus. The other things he wanted to excel at had always meant recognition by the Clave, pride from his family. Big things that led to higher standing in everyone’s eyes.

This was small, just him and another person–him and Magnus–but somehow Magnus' easy, happy sigh meant the world. 

He swallowed when Magnus came, Magnus’ back arched in ecstatic delight. 

Alec pushed himself up until his body was aligned with Magnus’, where they lied together catching their breath. The clock on the bedside table flickered, another minute passing by. A minute well spent. 

“Here.” Magnus waved his hand and a glass of water appeared in his grip. He handed it to Alec, who took a sip. 

“Thanks.” He said. 

Magnus went on to magic a wash cloth for their sticky bodies. There was some good in dating a warlock. Alec held out a hand. “Let me?” Magnus passed it to him with a flicker at his brow. “Turn over.”

Magnus did, huffing out a small laugh. “Such a gentlemen.” He teased, even while his eyes closed in comfort. 

Alec wasn’t very good at emotions. Sometimes they flew into spikes, and he didn’t know how to handle it, lashing out or bottling it in turns. This was something he could do, though, be steady about for Magnus. A physical support while he tried to learn the complexities of an emotional one. 

Magnus vanished the cloth away when he was done, off into some laundry hamper a room away. “Come lay down with me.” He held out a hand.

Alec grasped it, letting himself be pulled forward by their tangled fingers. He didn’t have to be asked twice.


	2. The Four Stages of Alec Lightwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Narrated by his sister.

“You know,” Isabelle said, following Alec’s line of sight. The man Alec was staring wide-eyed at was Asian. He had rings over all his fingers and every time Isabelle saw him he was dressed in a snazzy jacket or fashionable button-down. Isabelle appreciated people who took clothing seriously. “If you want to ask him out, you can.”

Alec looked at her like she was crazy, and Isabelle felt that regular tightening she got in her chest when she looked at her brother. He made her sad. She loved him more than anything, and he made her sad because he was sad. Admit you’re gay. She thought. Admit you love Jace and then find a guy you can use to get over him.

“You’d be so much happier if you just opened up.” She told him, because it was true, and watched as Alec shut down. It was simple: a shine lost from the eyes and a limp added to the back, as if he could make himself and his wants so small they might disappear. She didn’t think he even knew he was doing it.

The man at the table over laughed, his laugh a chime in the little restaurant. It was a happy sound, a good sound. Isabelle felt herself lightening at it, and she watched Alec lighten as well. There was a smile breaching the corners of his mouth, fighting for a place on his face. Alec pressed his lips together. Hard.

Isabelle flicked her straw wrapper at Alec. Alec turned to her, his face an exaggerated scowl. Isabelle smiled innocently, the way she did when she was anything but innocent. “Fast reflexes.” She said.

Alec huffed at her and shot his own straw wrapper into her hair, ruining the smooth as silk texture she had labored over that morning. “Back at you.” He rumbled. He was smiling now, little valleys hidden in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. That had never been hard for him, smiling at her.

Their parents could take and take and take from Alec all they wanted; they’d never be able to separate her from him and him from her.

 

“So he’s good looking.” Alec said. He was sitting a bit taller these days, his head a bit higher. He hadn’t turned to smiling all the time, but he wasn’t always frowning either. Isabelle liked him like this. He wasn’t hunching over, waiting for some sort of attack, and it made her feel more relaxed. She could talk to him now, without him retreating.

“I know you think that, you’ve just been eyeing him every time we come here.” Isabelle replied. That much was clear. Alec was forever calling her out on repeating the obvious, but when it came to his sexuality he was committed to saying the things Izzy had known for years. She didn’t mind. It made her happy, the way he could now say: “I’m gay.” without hating himself for it later.

“So go talk to him.” She said.

Alec shook his head. “Not gonna happen.” He tapped his fork against his plate, as if it was a signal to end the conversation.

No way was Isabelle taking that. “Why not? He seems friendly. He’d totally go for you, I’m sure. We have the Lightwood charm.”

“His friendliness is the problem.” Alec was frowning. “He shows up with a different guy or girl every week.”

“So?” Isabelle said. She was thinking of herself, the way she had played around until she met Simon. It wasn’t that he had expected her to stop, or that she had expected herself to stop, it was just that she had.

“So he’s probably–” Alec waved a hand, as if that could encompass all he wasn’t saying.

“Probably what?” Isabelle asked. Her voice had gotten harsher without her noticing, and it made her uncomfortable, directing that harshness toward her brother. She saved her meanness for other people.

Alec shrugged.

“Shallow? Selfish? Slutty?” Slut was a word that was familiar to Isabelle. It meant many things, most of them bad, despite her efforts to reclaim it.

“It’s not–” And Alec was stuck again, the way he got sometimes. Emotions were hard for regular people. Isabelle didn’t know how hard they would be for someone who had liked to pretend they didn’t matter for most of his life. “He probably doesn’t want what I want.” He finished, stuttered.

Alec was a traditionalist when it came to relationships. It was funny, in a terrible way, because their parents always wanted children that followed the ‘date for a year, get married, have babies’ template. They would have had that in Alec–not in Isabelle, who was skeptical of marriage after watching her parents pretend like they didn’t hate each other, or Jace, who they all thought would be a playboy well into his later years, until he met Clary. They would have, they still did, but they refused to acknowledge it, because Alec would always be marrying a man in that hypothetical future wedding.

Isabelle set her palms flat on the table. “How do you know?”

“What?” Alec asked.

“How do you know what he wants? You’ve never even talked to him.”

And there Alec went, again, making excuses for himself that almost sounded reasonable.

“Just–try it? Worst thing that happens is he turns you down.”

When Isabelle and Simon were past the “let’s make out and get each other off in the back of my band’s van” stage and had moved into the “alright, so actually I really like you and could you maybe hold my hand like you mean it?” phase, Isabelle was super jealous. Not that she’d admit it.

She never hated Clary, let’s make that clear. Isabelle didn’t subscribe to girl-on-girl hate, not when they could instead be spending their time being fabulous together, which Clary and Izzy did. It was just that–Simon loved Clary, for years and years before he had even met Isabelle, and he still cared for her greatly.

Who really gave a crap about all the guys Isabelle had been with before? She remembered their scents and the feel of them around her, but she didn’t remember their names. Even if she did, she wouldn’t have a reason to use them, because she didn’t see the people they belonged to anymore anyway.

Simon still saw Clary. Alec still saw Jace. They cared, continued to care.

If Isabelle was being honest, she didn’t get Alec’s peevishness at some disposable lover, but she didn’t say that. As her brother grew into himself, she had been learning the fine art of support through Simon. The way he didn’t push or shove even when he could–Isabelle liked that, knew Alec would like it too. So she stayed quiet. Let him figure it out on his own, she thought, let him learn it in a real romance.

“I can think of a lot of worse things.” Alec was saying, glancing at the table where the man was talking animatedly with his friends.

“You’ve always been action over words.” Isabelle said. She said it confidently, because she knew her brother. “So do something."

 

It was an average day, but on the good side of average. Izzy had called Simon, and he had blabbed all about Star Trek to her. She had rolled her eyes over the phone, while making a note to record reruns on the sci-fi channel. Jace had hugged them both before heading out with Clary on some clique picnic in the park type of thing, but Isabelle wasn’t one to judge too harshly. It was good, to see Jace take an active interest in someone after being on womanizer autopilot for the past year.

Alec was Alec, quiet, but not withdrawn, not from her. They were at Taki’s, the way they were whenever they had time to go together. Alec was tapping his fingers on the tabletop in a rhythmic pattern.

“What’s with the tapping?” Isabelle knocked her knuckles against the table in solidarity with her weirdo brother.

“I have to go.” He patted her shoulder once and slipped out of the booth. He looked like he was on a mission, back ramrod straight, eyes staring unflinchingly forward.

“No fucking way.” Isabelle whispered to herself, watching her brother stride over to the man he had been crushing on for the past century. For a second, Isabelle was transported back in time to right before their teenage years started, Alec shaking his head at her and telling her not to swear.

That Alec wasn’t the same Alec she saw now. Honestly, this Alec would probably welcome a few swear words if they were coming from his crushes’ mouth.

The man looked up, putting his hand under his chin. He had that expression she knew well, that interested and amused look. Isabelle felt herself sit up straighter. It was ridiculous. Alec could handle himself, but still.

The man said something, and an untamed smile broke across Alec’s face. His cheeks were even flushing.

Isabelle could see the man pause in thought. He brought his hand down from his chin, and turned in the booth so that he was facing Alec fully, all his attention on him.

That’s right. Isabelle thought smugly.

And she watched in fascinated amusement as her brother scored, coming back to their table with a sparkly phone number written in gel pen crawling up his arm like a new tattoo.

 

“I’m Magnus.” The man, Magnus, said, offering his hand to Isabelle. She shook it.

They smiled at each other, their teeth bright and sharp, and Isabelle saw Alec sneaking glances at them around his menu out of the corner of her eye. Really, why he assumed this meeting would be a disaster was beyond her. The stories she had heard from Alec made Magnus sound hilarious and like a bit of a badass as well. Good taste, she thought approvingly, mentally patting her brother on the back.

It was kind of unexpected. Magnus–wasn’t who she saw her brother going for. When Isabelle ever thought about it, she guessed that Alec would start dating Jace 2.0. Blonde. Buff. Maybe a leather jacket over a polo shirt.

Magnus was super gay–excuse her, super bisexual–so if Alec wanted to pretend to be manly dude bros in public then he was probably out of luck. That was fine, seeing as any bro-ishness Alec previously possessed seemed to go right out the window when he was around Magnus. He was all heart eyes and the occasional sarcastic remark. Isabelle liked him that way.

Magnus leaned his shoulder against Alec’s without thinking about it, and Alec leaned back against him. Alec clearly was thinking about it, his quick scan of the restaurant confirmed it, but he didn’t move. A thousand protestations in a touch of shoulders, and he did it all with Magnus’ weight supporting him.

“So, Magnus Bane,” Isabelle said. “Tell me about yourself.”

Magnus leaned back, going for extravagant, and Alec rolled his eyes the way he did when Isabelle and Jace were being unnecessarily showy. Before Magnus said anything, he looked at Alec, like: “Watch me work.” Alec smiled, included in some invisible way Magnus had.

Huh. She thought, watching Magnus watch Alec, watching Alec watch Magnus right back. Cute.

And she listened as Magnus weaved them three a tale.

 


	3. The Cat Named Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thinks about doing something.

There’s a cat outside his window. It’s a small thing; scrawny with big, dark eyes.

Magnus watches the cat, and the cat watches him. It’s a standoff. The cat tilts its head, before turning away, moving back through the brush and into the sun.

Magnus lies back down on the couch. Closes his eyes.

He wakes to a text from Catarina:

_I understand. Know that I am only a call away._

Magnus blinks at it, for it takes a moment to register. Then he blinks at it some more.

He can’t do one thing or another for it, so eventually he just shuts the phone off and lets it go black.

 

The cat is out there again, watching him. Magnus has been ignoring it, hoping it would go away. It keeps coming back, however.

“What do you want?” He asks it. He’s almost angry, but that’s ridiculous, to be angry at a cat. The cat just stares.

Even with his head turned away, Magnus can feel the thing retreating, back through the blasted brush.

 

It’s not that Magnus hasn’t thought about clients. He has, he just doesn’t care. They bang on his door when he deserts them, their last chance to fix all the mistakes they have made.

Magnus plays dead. The wording makes him feel uncomfortable after a while, so he pretends he’s in a coma instead.

 

When the cat shows up again, it’s sad eyes gazing through the window, Magnus opens it only to throw a wave of magic the animal’s way. He doesn’t try to hurt it. Even now, with numbness making a home in his insides, there’s something about the cat that he can’t bring himself to destroy.

The cat skitters away from the sparks, leaving back through the brush, but the next day it’s back again. Staring.

 

Magnus gives up hope of stopping it. If it comes, then it comes. The first few days they are silent with each other, accepting the other’s presence with a cold shoulder. Magnus has been starved, though, being on his own in this loft.

If he is to go mad, talking at a cat is a good enough way to go. “What do you want with me?” He asks, eyeing the cat as it eyes him. “Can’t you see that I don’t want you?”

The cat doesn’t say anything in return.

Magnus eats when he is not doing nothing. Food tastes different now. It’s more like fuel than anything, just something needed to get by.

He thinks about having not changed the furniture or the walls in weeks, and how that is unusual. Then he decides it doesn’t matter, and he goes back to sleep.

 

From his bedroom window, Magnus watches the cat. He comes to expect it every morning, peering in through the brush. He did not think he had any real attachment to it, not until one day the cat doesn’t show up.

He panics. It’s not a heavy breathing, terrified sort of thing. He doesn’t even go out to look for it, like he would if he cared all that much. It’s just that it was something, and now, again, there is nothing.

Magnus thought he was used to nothing, but that turns out not to be the case.

When the cat shows up again the next morning, it’s eyes thick, Magnus feels something in him settle. Even if he doesn’t want to do anything with the cat, he’s glad he has the option. That it hasn’t deserted him entirely.

 

Tessa says she’s coming over. She sends him a fire message, like they’re still back in London. It reads:

_Dear Magnus,_

_You are family to me, even if I do not say it enough. I heard about Alexander’s passing from Catarina, and I am coming in at the first. Please allow me to take care of you as you have taken care of me._

_Your Good Friend,_

_Tessa_

She doesn’t, he notes, use the name Herondale or Carstairs, but neither does she use Gray. It makes him want to burn the page between his fingers, until the words are whisked away. But it is too late, he has already read them.

Magnus swallows whatever is in his throat, and smoothes the paper out on the counter. He intends to place it in some obscure spell book, not to be looked at even as it lives, but he falls asleep with the page out next to him.

 

The cat is there. It has come close to the window now, meowing. Magnus can hear it at all times of day. No matter his attempts to silence it, the animal preserves. Still, each day the cat heads back the way it came, through the brush.

Without meaning to, Magnus grows curious.

 

Each day, his curiosity grows more and more, until he’s thinking up spells to trick the cat into revealing what it’s hiding.

“Again, I’m ridiculous.” He tells the cat, who only meows back at him, a tilt to the head. Magnus thinks he now knows what that tilt means: “Come and find out, if you are so inclined.”

Tessa’s impending presence is weighing on him. Magnus knows she’ll be there any moment. It could be days. It could be minutes. All the nerves that had turned cold are suddenly up and screaming, and Magnus can no longer stay still as he has been.

So he follows the cat.

 

The first ray of sun on his skin is a strange sensation. He hadn’t realized how utterly stale his loft has been, a dead thing, a dying thing. This feels like life, and Magnus does not know how to react to it.

He’s soon acutely aware of the skin on his face, unwashed. The hair on his head, tangled. The uncomfortable way his clothes cling to the grime on his body.

I want a bath. He thinks. I want to feel clean.

He moves slow to the brush, where the cat always hides away. With dirty hands he pulls at the leaves, until they come apart.

He stares. His face cracks. It’s a painful, messy thing, but the crack leaves behind a sacred smile. “You must be kidding.”

The cat looks up at him, it’s eyes happy. Four little kittens are curled up around it, licking at each other’s fur. “You must–” Magnus’ voice breaks in the middle, a laugh clawing up his throat.

Clawing he thinks, and loses it.

He laughs, and he lets it go on until the laughter turns to tears, and then he lets that go on too. I would have never been this much a mess before you, you stupid nephilim. Magnus thinks, and it is an undeniably fond thought.

 

Tessa enters Magnus’ loft and is greeted with the sight of Magnus sitting cross-legged on the rug, one cat and four kittens crawling over his arms and chest. The curtains are open, and the light is shinning bright on his face. He’s newly washed, his hair still wet.

She doesn’t question it.

“Do they have names?”

Magnus shakes his head. “Not yet.”

Tessa leans her shoulder against his. Magnus hands her one of the small kittens, and they pet them together.

“I’ll help you think of some.” She says.


	4. Dancing Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus strips for a living. So what?

“Don’t you want to touch me?” Magnus asked.

He looked genuinely put out by the idea that Alec didn’t. It was the first natural thing Alec had witnessed all night, among the cloying hits of heavy cologne and the steady pounding of bass filtering in from the speakers at the back of the club.

Yet it seemed unreal: some half-naked stripper in a steady grind against Alec’s thighs, looking sad over the fact that Alec wasn’t touching him more than he already was. “I–,” He stuttered. Of course he did. He always stuttered in the presence of beautiful men; it was a curse. “I didn’t know that was a thing that was allowed.”

“It’s allowed here. If I don’t mind, which,” He ran his eyes down Alec’s chest and back up again. “I wouldn’t mind. Really.”

The appreciative glance and the appreciative words and the _really_ appreciative way Magnus ground down into Alec’s lap did their work and did it well. Alec could feel himself hardening, right there, out in the open for everyone to see.

If he could sink straight through the floor, he would have.

“Hey,” Alec’s eyes snapped back to Magnus’ own. It was the first time he really gave himself the chance to look at them closely, and they seemed to waver between gold and green. It was frustrating that Alec couldn’t pinpoint the exact shade. “Are you with me?” Magnus said.

Alec coughed, let the dryness in his throat out. “Yeah, I’m with you.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow, and it made the glitter on his lids shine a bit brighter. “Do you _want_ to be with me?” He had stopped moving.

Alec could feel his body cry out. It was embarrassing, the desire to keep Magnus with him–to keep Magnus _on top_ of him–but it was there. Alec wasn’t one for denial. If he was taking a route, he’d rather just downplay.

“Yeah, I want you.” Alec could feel Magnus stiffen at that, his thighs tensing over Alec’s, and maybe Alec wasn’t the only one making a fool of himself tonight. Out of the two of them, the stripper should have more composure, right?

Still–

Alec slowly peeked over Magnus’ shoulder. He was expecting to see Isabelle looking at him through the crowd with a, God forbid, smirk on her face, the expression equivalent of two thumbs up. She had gotten him into this after all. Thankfully, his sister and the rest of the group were busy being distracted by some men in very tight overalls.

“The girl?” Magnus asked, following Alec’s line of sight. “Is she your date?” Alec felt his face scrunch up without his permission, and he tried to flatten it. A look of disgust was probably not attractive.

“Family then.” Alec nodded. “That’s what I thought, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Magnus adjusted his position over Alec, trying to get more comfortable. Alec reached out an unthinking hand, pressing support into his back as he moved. “You wouldn’t believe the closet cases we get in here that like to pretend their girlfriend forced them into it.”

It was funny. They had gone from hot and heavy to easy conversation like that, and Alec had no idea of how they got there.

“It’s weird, with her–” Alec waved a hand over in Isabelle’s direction.

Magnus beamed. It made his figure, which was, at least to Alec, a tad intimidating in its near nakedness, turn suddenly soft. Alec felt the heat climb swiftly back up his spine. God. This man was fucking gorgeous, and Alec knew he was going to have trouble looking his sister in the eye again after this night. But that was tomorrow, and tonight was now.

“That’s fine.” Magnus said. He folded himself off of Alec with feline’s grace–elegant and effective. Alec stumbled out of the chair. For a second, he thought that he had forgotten how to walk.

“Come with me.” He held out a hand, and Alec took it. He hoped his palms weren’t as sweaty as they seemed. “I know a place a little more, shall we say, private.”

He pushed Alec down onto a seat in one corner of the club, in the same movement pulling a thick, black curtain around them. It dimmed the lights and the music, brought everything a little closer to home.

Alec could hear Magnus breathing, a bit heavy from working himself over Alec out in the open air. The sound was almost too intimate, despite the grinding mere minutes before, but Magnus broke it with a smile.

“You’re a big guy.” He said, running the pads of his fingers over the muscles of Alec’s arm. Alec did his best not to choke. Magnus’ voice lifted up at the ends, pulling Alec’s shell along with it.

He was _good_ at this, in a way Alec never had been. Good at complimenting someone yet somehow still keeping all the power to himself.

Magnus settled back over Alec, and it was much more natural than it had been at first. There was an expectation this time, only a few tiny pinpricks of worry left over. It was different, just Magnus and a sheet of black around them, and Alec found himself in want.

Magnus traced his fingers from Alec’s arm to the width of his shoulders. It was endlessly fascinating: his touch, but also the _way_ he touched. “You wouldn’t use that strength for anything bad, would you?” He asked, his eyes coy and his teeth sharp.

“Only if you wouldn’t mind.” The words came clunky out of Alec’s mouth, even though they sounded right in his head. So right, that he couldn’t avoid saying them.

He watched Magnus closely for signs of rejection–what was he thinking, embarrassing himself, this guy was getting paid to flirt with him–only to see his eyes go wide.

“Interesting.” Magnus murmured, his stare a flame, like Alec had said something unexpected but pleasant and now he was determined to figure him out. To dig his thighs in at just the right places on Alec’s hips and twist his thoughts right out of him.

Alec closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure he was going to survive the onslaught.

“Why did you come tonight?” Magnus was grinning. “This doesn’t really seem like your– scene.”

“It’s not.”

Magnus chuckled, supposedly at the way Alec was more than blunt, and the vibrations that were created only did good things.

Alec licked his lips. “It’s a long story.”

“Go ahead and tell it,” Magnus said, adjusting his grip on the back of Alec’s neck. “We have nothing but time.”

So Alec did. It wasn’t a very interesting story, but he went ahead with it, and Magnus made quips in all the right places near the shell of Alec’s ear that made him smile despite himself.

The whole night had breathed disaster the second Alec stepped into the club and his face turned cherry red, all those unexpected naked bodies and foreign alcoholic drinks, but this wasn’t so bad. A handsome man in his lap, making him laugh. Alec wasn’t going to lie and say he didn’t enjoy it.

He wondered how many men and women Magnus flashed that smile to, if he brought them all back here after hooking them. If he moved down on them in the exact same way and pieced together phrases of sex and appreciation like candy floss that they gobbled up like they were starving–for desire, for love, for recognition.

It was an unhappy thought for Alec, and he let it fester in the back of his mind but did nothing with it. What could he do, after all?

Magnus sighed, his movements slowing. If Alec was paying slightly less attention, he would have missed the tired slant to Magnus’ brow–a quick flash, there and gone, across his face.

“You can stop if you’re tired.” Alec said. “Or– I mean, you can stop whenever. It’s fine.”

Magnus blinked, the liner around his eyes highlighting his shock. It wasn’t entirely pleasant this time. He looked away from Alec as if on reflex, before returning to him with a grin made of plastic.

Alec was no fool. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Pretend like you’re not sore. That’s just dumb.”

“Oh,” Magnus let out a little laugh. "Alright then, seeing as you’re the expert in these things.”

“I have three siblings I’ve needed to patch up since birth. I think I’ve had experience.” It took a little coaxing, but eventually he got Magnus to relax his stance.

He let Magnus settle half on the chair, half on his lap, and used his fingers to try to blot out any hurt. Magnus was looking at him with something like incredulity playing at the upturned corners of his lips, but Alec wouldn’t be deterred. He had done training for his fight competitions from the time he could walk, and he knew how annoying those little aches and pains could be.

Magnus groaned–quietly, bruisingly soft–when Alec hit a particularly sensitive spot on the back of his thigh, warm with sweat. A spasm rocked Alec’s hands.

The hairs on his neck stood on end, and his cock lifted. It was awkward, because he knew Magnus could feel it, could feel just how gone Alec was without even seeing him completely naked, but he only kept at it, rubbing out that pain. He had a goal, and he wasn’t going to let something stupid get in the way of it.

Alec was again drawn to the way Magnus breathed, a steady tempo for his working fingers. It was slight this time, the rise and fall of his chest, as if he was holding himself in.

“Thank you,” Magnus said. “That was kind of you.” The look on his face was strange. In that moment, Alec was certain that whoever Magnus was outside or inside of this job, he was a person made of layers and layers. Whatever he was seeing now, he was pretty sure it was a lot further down in the center than Magnus meant to reveal.

Magnus huffed out a breath. It was laughter-tinged, but only because it had to be. "I should be paying you, seeing as you bothered to give me a massage.”

Alec wiped his hands on his pants, blatantly trying to get his sweat off the palms. It was a little too late for pretending. “Free of charge.”

Magnus leaned in, fast like quicksilver, and brushed his lips against Alec’s. The shock of it caused Alec to jump. It was barely a peck, but the places they touched burned.

“That,” Magnus whispered in his ear. “Is against the rules.”

His eyes were shining, lines of gold painted under them like wings.

Alec wished suddenly that he could see him out of this club.

What would he look like, out in the open, sun beating down on his head? Would he still draw rings around his eyes and put color on his nails? (For some reason, Alec thought he would.) What would he wear when given the chance? Jeans, sweatshirts (Alec couldn’t picture it), open neck tops, fancy jackets or neon shoes?

It was a small thought, there and gone, but it was a thought nonetheless.

“Well, not that this hasn’t been a lovely experience, but I really need to be getting back to work.” Magnus said, slowly untangling himself from Alec’s frame. When he left, Alec’s body turned cold.

He didn’t know if Magnus had to leave or if he just wanted to. Alec assumed it was the later, but he didn’t bring attention to it.

“How much do I give you?” Alec asked.

“Hmm?”

“Money. I mean, that seemed long.” He scratched at his eyebrow, covering half his face from Magnus’ view. “I don’t know about the usual amount, I never really had a dance or whatever you call them–”

Magnus held a finger up to Alec’s lips, amused. “I’m going to stop you right there, before you hurt yourself.”

His expression twisted, moving from something close to fondness into a blank face. He tilted his head and looked at Alec, his eyes faraway stars. Untouchable.

“How much do you think?”

“What?”

“How much was my performance worth?” He crossed his arms. “You tell me.”

Alec froze. He stared at Magnus, like he was meant to save him, when he was the one who put him in the situation in the first place. “I don’t–” He started, unknowing. He felt small in that second, even though Magnus only came up to his nose.

Magnus’ face thawed, like a sheet of ice turned suddenly to water. “I’m sorry.” He said, kissing Alec’s cheek softly. An apology. “That was cruel of me. Pretend I didn’t say it.”

Fuck. Alec wasn’t a child, he could handle a little ego bruising. A little toughness. Magnus was testing him, and Alec could only be honest in his answer.

He took out the sum of his wallet and passed it over. “It’s not much.” He said, truthfully. “I didn’t know we were going to this club until we were already here.” Let alone that I'd met some gorgeous guy who signaled me out like a bloodhound. Probably because of my newness, but whatever.

Magnus’ fingers curled around the bills, and it seemed to take him an eternity to pull them out of Alec’s grasp. “This is more than enough.” Magnus said, and now he was the small one. Alec didn’t want that.

“Good. It was a good dance.”

Magnus smiled at him for it, because he wasn’t stupid. Alec had a feeling that he could be the smartest person Alec had ever met.

Isabelle found him near the entrance of the club. Her hair was a bit tangled, and her cheeks were flushed, not from embarrassment but from satisfaction. “I met this really cool guy, Merlion.” She said. “He was funny; we could be really good friends if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s smoking.”

“Iz,” Alec said.

“Come on, ‘smoking’, that’s too much for you? I almost feel bad leaving you to fend for yourself,” She smacked his shoulder, a light tap. “But you’re still here. What happened?”

She was grinning at him, her dark lipstick a threat in her heart shaped face. Alec hung back his head. He didn’t care for lying, not to her, but ‘a hot guy just climbed into my lap and I pretty much relinquished every dollar I had’ seemed a tad too embarrassing to be said out loud. Or in his head.

“You can tell me at home.” She slipped her arm through his, and they moved to walk out. Alec wouldn’t mind some fresh air, something not repurposed.

“Hey, excuse me.” Alec turned around. A women in shimmering blue body paint was looking him over, her chest heaving from running to catch up with them. “Are you Alec?”

He nodded.

She offered her hand, in it a crumpled bill. “My idiot friend said that you paid him too much, and that he needed you to have this back.”

Alec took it, startled. Before he could say anything, the woman was slipping back through the crowd, lost.

Alec turned to Isabelle, whose eyes shined with something like awe. Alec didn’t like the expression. “You?” She gasped. “You hired a stripper?”

Alec got caught around trying to say it was more like he was ambushed, but that would leave out all the more incriminating ways he had asked Magnus to stay and arched at his touch.

“Oh my god.” Isabelle was overjoyed. “How much did he give you back?” She snatched the bill out of Alec’s hand. Her eyes went wide. “Woah.”

“What?” Alec asked, sure that maybe strippers didn’t get payed as much as he thought, and that he had given Magnus a tiny fortune that he was being kind in slipping back. “It has a number written on it.”

She snapped it out flat so that Alec could see. Right across the top, in sloped cursive, a tiny ‘Call me.’

"My brother got a phone number from a stripper. This is amazing.” She was so delighted that any chill she previously had evaporated. “You have to call him.” She said. “It’ll be great. Then I can say my brother got a phone number from a stripper _and_ a date.”

Alec was quiet. He ran the pads of his fingers over the raised edges of Magnus’ writing. Magnus, who bothered to scrawl his name across the top of a bill and find a friend to deliver it to Alec, even if it meant relinquishing his pay.

A small declaration.

He folded the bill carefully with his big hands, smoothing it before slipping it into the safety of his back pocket.

What does he look like, out in the open? Was ringing through his head, like a far-off echo.

If he has the balls, then maybe he can call and find out.

…

They start dating, because Alec would be stupid if he let Magnus go after he gets to know him–strong, funny, beautiful Magnus, who likes fancy jackets and neon shoes–and apparently, for reasons unknown, Magnus feels the same way.

One of the first questions someone else asks another is “What do you do?” or “Where do you work?” This quicky becomes awkward for Alec, in a way it never has been before.

Alec lies to his parents, because he has to.

He tells them that Magnus works business at a company they’ve never heard off, and the words taste like ash in his mouth.

Isabelle looks at him knowingly. Their parents had almost cut off contact with Alec after he told them he was gay, so sure that would mean he would be living a sinful lifestyle full of sexual excess. Magnus, a stripper, would only be proving their ignorant worldview correct.

Jace, surprisingly enough, isn’t that much better.

At first, he thinks it’s as great as Isabelle does. “You bagged a stripper?” He says, looking at Alec, and laughs and laughs.

He makes stupid puns and jokes about it, ones so bad that even Isabelle rolls her eyes, and he gives Alec weird thumbs up behind Magnus’ back.

But there’s a time when they’re alone, hanging out at the family house, where Jace looks at him a little strangely.

“Isn’t it hard?” He asks. “Magnus being a stripper, and all?”

Alec bristles. He’d rather not get into it, the lingering jealousy he can’t completely shake. It reminds him of their worst fight as a couple: Alec’s repressed self-consciousness coming back to bite them in the ass, asking Magnus why he had to be a stripper anyway and Magnus turning absolutely frigid at the question.

Alec swallows around the hurt in his throat. He doesn’t like to think about that time. “It is what it is.” He says.

“I just–man. I don’t think I’d be cool with it if Clary was one, that’s all.”

“She would slap you for saying that.” Clary Fray: art major with a minor in women’s studies.

“Yeah,” Jace says. Alec can tell he isn’t trying to be an ass by the way he sounds so thoughtful. “Yeah, she would.”

It is when Max, ten-year-old brother Max, asks Magnus what his job is that things get too much. Alec is left unbalanced, unsure of what to tell him.

Magnus flops down on the couch next to Max, and says, easy as anything: “Oh, I make people happy.”

“Really? How?”

Magnus’ voice lowers, and Max leans in closer to hear. “It’s a secret.” He says. “I have to be very quiet about it.”

“You sound like a superhero.” Max’s eyes are wide and calculating at the same time. He’s young enough to believe Magnus but old enough to question.

“Hmm, yes.” Magnus replies. “Something like that. I do have a bit of a double identity.”

Max grins at him, and he giggles when Magnus makes a knowing face, like this conversation is just between them, two people more special than the others. Alec is inclined to agree with that belief.

He corners Magnus outside, after. “About what you said to Max–” Magnus’ happy smile becomes smaller, as if he is preparing for another fight. It’s wrong, so wrong that he expects that. Alec kisses him hard, his hands clasped around his back. “No, it was great. You were great.”

It doesn’t feel like enough, nothing Alec could say would be enough to tell Magnus how amazing Alec thinks he is. But the blinding white-teethed smile Magnus grants him feels like understanding.

I don’t get it, Alec kisses into his skin. I don’t get your work or the importance it seems to have to you, but keep telling me, keep trying to make me understand, because I’m going to be trying for you as long as you let me.


	5. Tell Me All Your Flaws, and I'll Love You Anyway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus tries. Alec tries. 
> 
> There's a love in trying.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alec said.

All these things, all this hurt Magnus had been carrying. Alec had no idea.

“You didn’t ask.” Magnus said it softly, like he knew that the words weren’t going to land well with Alec. He was right.

“What the hell, Magnus?” And he felt anger at it all, shocking and bold. “You know all these things about me. The first time you met me even–” The memory, uncomfortable even now because of the way it had left him bare without consent, of the memory demon’s vision; Clary’s understanding and Jace’s obliviousness.

“Alexander–”

“Don’t,” Alec swallowed. He wanted to tell Magnus not to call him that. At least, he did, before he saw Magnus’ expression crack, and he was once again gifted with a glance of what was behind that surface sheen.

He was beautiful like that, though Alec didn’t want to admit it. Beautiful in his hurt and his vulnerability.

“Do you not trust me?” He said. It was said in that moment of being taken aback by Magnus, once again, and he wanted to pretend like it hadn’t been spoken.

Magnus’ eyes, bright with care, were not going to let that happen. “Of course I do, Alec–”

“Then why?” He let out a shaky breath. “Why don’t you tell me these things?”

“They’re not important. They’re–” And for once it was Magnus who was at a loss for words.

“They are. They’re a part of you. You–you did all these things, loved all these people.” Alec felt sick when he said that, thinking about Magnus having loved before him. Even if it hurt, though, he would still rather know all about it than go on pretending.

Alec had pretended for a long time, acting as though he could play at straight for the rest of his life, as if feelings and desires didn’t matter, and it had never led anywhere good.

He sucked at emotions, always bottling shit up or exploding. If Magnus was being defensive, angry, he might have let this go on, let it turn into some big fight with slamming doors and bruised egos.

He couldn’t do that when Magnus was just sitting on the couch, staring up at him, looking smaller than usual. Looking, for once, to be his actual height. Smaller than Alec.

He had told himself he’d try harder, after everything that had happened, and promising to himself was different than actually carrying something out.

Alec sighed, taking a moment to calm himself down. While he was sighing, he noticed that all his muscles had bunched up without his knowledge. That was scary; he was a shadowhunter, and he should feel those body movements.

He sat down on the couch and hooked his fingers around Magnus’ fingers. Magnus appeared shocked at the action, at the idea that Alec could handle this conversation as an adult and not a child, and Alec definitely wanted to rid him of that perception.

“Just–” He squeezed Magnus’ hand in comfort. It was warm and steady in his own. “I love you. I want you to tell me things. I can handle it. You don’t think I can, but I can handle your weight.”

Magnus squeezed his hand back, tightly. “You don’t understand. I’m four-hundred years old.”

It was the first time he had told Alec his age without joking about it. Alec didn’t don’t how he knew, but he knew Magnus wasn’t kidding this time. It was probably the look in his eyes, the way he had shifted so that he was facing Alec head on despite the heartache etched over every line of his face.

Magnus sighed his own sigh. Trying, like Alec. Choosing him, choosing to be what Alec needed even though it would be easier not to be. “That’s a lot of weight. I don’t want to put that on you.”

“Are you sure that’s it?” Alec could have said it meanly or accusing. Instead, he made it soft. Like Magnus was, on the inside if not the outside.

Magnus chuckled. It was a painful chuckle. Alec felt his soul reach out of his body, as if it wanted nothing more than to cloak Magnus from whatever was hurting him.

Magnus leaned into Alec’s chest, and Alec made his arms strong like towers.

“Maybe not.” He whispered. _Maybe I’m scared for myself, as well._ He didn’t say that, but it was there, in the absence of words. Alec could fill it in. “I love you.” He added, not as an afterthought, but as something that needed to be said. As if he loved Alec even when Alec hurt him, even in their worst fights.

Alec pressed a kiss to Magnus’ hair, and he took a moment to be in awe that he was allowed. That Magnus allowed him.

Patience was hard for Alec. He had never owned a great supply of it, and he was sure that in the future he would push Magnus when he shouldn’t and cause him to hide just a bit further, because that was how things went with them sometimes.

Alec took in the warmth of Magnus, of his magic that seemed to radiate out of the pores in his skin. He felt the scratch of his stupidly impractical clothes that made Alec tongue-tied the first time he saw him in them, and the first time he saw him out of them, as well as the slick-backed nature of his beautifully styled hair. The hair Alec never knew how to compliment but always enjoyed looking at.

It was OK. He thought, brushing his hands across Magnus’ arm, body against body, heart against heart.

He never wanted a perfect relationship, anyway.

_How boring that would be._ He could hear Magnus’ answering, and he smiled.


	6. Say You Love Me (If You Want To)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec learns the fine art of a compliment.

Isabelle was looking at him like she was disappointed, all knowing eyes and downturned lips.

It was an expression Alec had not been subjected to in while. He was out now, officially, clinging to Magnus with one hand and his honor as a shadowhunter in the other. Things had been good. Not perfect–father was still having trouble meeting him eye-to-eye, and sometimes the others at the institute turned their heads when he walked past–but it was more than Alec had hoped for.

He had his marks. He had a man to kiss and hold. Both, at the same time, was an outstanding concept.

“What?” He asked, all flat. If she wanted something, why couldn’t she just come out and say it?

“Alec, as your sister, it hurts me to say this, but you need to be honest with yourself.”

Alec felt his eyebrows knit together, and he crossed his arms over his chest. Always expecting another blow.

Isabelle tilted her head meaningfully at Magnus’ back. “He dressed up for you today.”

Alec scratched at his arm. He wished he had his bow; he always felt more secure when he could grasp onto the arrow pouch’s strap. “Yeah, I guess.”

He _had_ noticed. Magnus’ eye-stuff (what was it called? Izzy would know) was particularly shimmery today, and he had gloss on his lips. He always did that when he wanted to be kissed. 

"So…“ Isabelle gestured at him.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Iz. Yeah, he looks good.” Was that it? Did she want him mentioning his gayness all the time now?

“I know you think that. That’s not what I’m saying.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “What I’m saying is that my brother is a sucky boyfriend.”

That was not the kind of blow Alec was expecting. “What the hell, Izzy?”

“It’s true. You didn’t even compliment him once. He always says nice things about you.” She tugged on his sweatshirt. “Even when you’re wearing stuff like this.”

"I don’t–” Alec glanced away.

“He’d like to hear it, is all.” Isabelle said, leaning her head against Alec’s arm. “That’s all.”

 

Magnus was so confident. So complete. To Alec, he was a shinning whole, and Alec was lucky that he got as close as he did.

Magnus said stuff to him, nice things, because he could tell from the beginning that Alec wasn’t used to being the center of attention. Sometimes Alec felt bad about it, making Magnus come up with all these new ways to say he wanted him, that he wasn’t a dusty rock next to Magnus’ diamond.

To think that Magnus wanted something like that from Alec? It was hard to imagine. He knew he looked good; he knew when he was sleek and funny. He didn’t need constant reassurance the way Alec did.

Still. Isabelle said that lovers complimented each other, and it wasn’t like it was a far out concept. Alec wanted Magnus knowing he appreciated him.

What he wasn’t expecting was for it to be so hard.

Magnus said all these perfect words and phrases, things that caused Alec to turn into a clumsy, stuttering mess, that made his heart beat in double-time and even made him forget the shapes of the runes over his own body.

There was no way Alec could do the same.

“Alec,” Magnus said. “What is it?”

He looked beautiful today. He was absolutely fucking beautiful, and Alec felt so stupid.

“Nothing.” He shrugged on his jacket. “Let’s go. Taki’s, right?”

 

Alec stayed over at Magnus’ that night, and they had sex in Magnus’ bed.

After Magnus’ breath leveled off, sleep eminent, Alec traced him with his eyes. Carefully, making sure to get every scar and every wrinkle of skin.

There was the area under his eyes, darker with worry minus the concealer.

The way his hair laid against the pillow like a wave, midnight black and heavy.

The curve of his nose. Alec didn’t know that noses could be attractive, but what was true was true.

The sweep of his cheeks into his chin, the smooth way they seemed to fit together. Like they were made just right.

His lips. _His lips_.

How could he say those thoughts out loud? It wasn’t like Magnus was going to laugh at him.

Magnus always made sure to tell Alec that he mattered, and it was wrong that Alec didn’t do the same. So what if Magnus _did_ laugh at him? Alec had faced the entire Clave when he came out, Magnus’ hand bright in his. He could handle one person, even if that person was a lot more detailed in his mind.

Alec brushed a lock of hair from Magnus’ eyes, and he laughed to himself as Magnus reflexively buried his face into the bed sheets. It was totally unattractive, the way his mouth opened and his eyes scrunched up, but Alec wanted to tell him how amazing he was anyway.

He went to sleep with a goal, and Alec Lightwood wasn’t one to leave goals unfinished.

  
They went to dinner again, a new restaurant, their favorite compromise. Magnus got out of the loft and Alec got a meal, just the two of them at a table.

Everything about the moment made Alec feel calm. Good food, Magnus smiling at him across the table, the way the light dipped the perfect amount. There was a high chance that they’d go back to Magnus’ loft at the end of the night, and Magnus would stare at his naked chest and thighs in a way that made him simultaneously embarrassed and prideful.

Alec remembered the moment he first saw Magnus looking at him that way, like he was undone just by him standing there, shirtless. It was the first time he felt desirable in that sense, and he wasn’t likely to ever forget it.

Magnus had his rings on, the ones that shone when he moved his hands. Alec was a bit mesmerized. Magnus moved like liquid, smooth but completely in control. It was different than the way shadowhunters moved, always quick and efficient, almost hard.

He was wearing gloss, and every time Alec got him to smile his lips shined. Alec’s thoughts were dominated by it.

“I want to kiss you.” Alec said.

Magnus’ eyes went unexpectedly wide. He blinked. “Oh?”

There was no tremble to his hands. He didn’t flush. He was quiet, which for Magnus was strange, but he wasn’t left stuttering over words.

Alec, who had been dating Magnus for a while now, saw the way the words hit directly at his heart, a quiet bull’s-eye. Magnus Bane wasn’t shocked by a lot of things, but Alec might be one of them. He felt giddy.

“I want you.” Alec said, desperate to keep going. “You look–amazing. You always do. I want you right now.”

His own ears were reddening. They were on their own, a private table, but there were still _people_ there. He swallowed against the rough patch in his throat but wouldn’t let himself look away. This was him, and Magnus, and he had a goal.

Alec knew it must be weird. He could bluntly say all the dirty things he wanted in bed, but the process of _getting_ in bed was usually left to Magnus. Alec’s method of seduction mostly amounted to kissing the other person until they got on board or rolled away tiredly while patting him consolingly on the ass.

Magnus was looking at him, his eyes dark. “We can get a check now.” He said.

Sex was– It wasn’t different, necessarily, but Magnus was going at him pretty hard, laying hickeys everywhere and smiling heavily into his neck.

“Fuck,” Alec let out, sprawled on his back. Magnus laughed at him for it, but Alec took it pretty well.

It wasn’t exactly his point in everything, but he’d take it.

  
“Someone got well laid last night.” Isabelle said, shooting him an amused glance.

Did she have a radar for these things? Alec thought in dismay.

“Why don’t you focus on your own sex life?” The pain of Merlion had waned, and his sister was in the middle of some complex dance with the mundane turned vampire. Alec stayed far out of that business, but it was an unspoken truth that Alec was getting more than both of his sex-obsessed siblings combined.

Isabelle only lifted her head–touché, it said–turning back to the computer screen in front of her. It was better that way, in Alec’s opinion. There was a time for gossip and a time for work, and not having to constantly answer for his gay sex life was appealing at the moment, though he knew better now than to believe they wouldn’t sometimes intertwine.

 

It got easier after that. Magnus would smile at him after every kind word, after every appreciative comment.

“You look good today.” Alec’s compliments weren’t what some would call complex, but he was trying.

Magnus glanced down at his buttoned-up silk shirt and triangle necklace, as if he had forgotten what he had put on that morning. Or maybe like he was looking at it anew.

“I do, don’t I?” Magnus grinned.

He swung his shoulders back and forth, as if he could pull Alec closer with sheer will. Alec was in the belief that it was possible.

Eventually, Alec’s stomach stopped swooping every time he would open his mouth to tell Magnus something nice, and he was glad. It should be normal to say those things.

He found Izzy sometime later, stopping to lean against the door of her bedroom.

“Thank you.” He said.

“What for?”

He popped off the door with a twist. “Just thanks.”

  
“Can we leave?” Alec asked. Magnus had wanted to try out a café someone had told him about, new in town. Alec was fine with staying in or going out, but he'd like to know the plan.

“Just a second.” Magnus called. His voice traveled down the hall. Alec heard a crashing sound, like a dozen bottles had just hit the floor, then saw a burst of light that could only mean Magnus was using his magic to sweep up the mess.

Alec smiled.

“Hmm?” Alec had gone ahead and went to see what Magnus was up to. More interesting than the ceiling, for sure. “Oh, darling, could you pass me the red bottle?” He didn’t even try to act like Alec had any idea of brand names. True enough.

Alec passed it over with a low toss, which Magnus caught smoothly. What he lacked in speed he made up for in movement.

“Do you really have to put all that stuff in your hair?”

Magnus took a second in his rush to turn still, just to give Alec an expression of bland mockery. Alec shut up. He was reaping the benefits of all that work, after all. If it came in dozens of products that looked exactly the same, with similar names and similar applications, then it’s not like he knew any better.

Alec watched Magnus languidly from his post on the bathroom cabinet as he turned a mess of black swirls into a sweeping tower, big and grand, just like himself.

Alec didn’t know much about art, but it was clear that what Magnus was doing classified.

“There.” Magnus said, spinning around. “Ready.”

It occurred to Alec that even when he stayed over those first couple nights, before they really were anything, that he never glimpsed Magnus out of form. He already had a shirt pressed, hair in place. His makeup never smudged, even though it should have.

It was shocking, the understanding that came to him in that moment. Magnus–so confident, a complete whole–was uncomfortable with Alec seeing him imperfect.

It was such a human thing. He was embarrassed then, that he thought Magnus would be immune to it.

Alec took his hand, and in it he felt the same tremors and pains any shadowhunter might feel. What _he_ felt.

  
There was a confidence in telling someone you loved them, that you cared for their body or their personality or even the simple way they smiled.

You had to start with the belief that your opinion mattered, that you were cared for back in some way–whether it be the easy but impersonal respect of coworkers or the intimate twining of trusts that lovers did.

Each and every comment was a leap, a little give-away of the soul. The other person could so easily take it and crush it between their fingers, or pocket it away greedily, nothing else in them left to give back.

Alec had always felt off-balance it the face of Magnus, when he said things or did things as if Alec was a bit more precious than the others around him. His own thoughts had been so focused on himself–was he blushing, fidgeting, don’t say something back, say something, he’s staring–that he never noticed that Magnus was left cold, in a state of vulnerability that Alec didn’t attack but neither did he comfort.

In appreciating Magnus, he could better learn to appreciate himself, and vice versa.

He started smiling when Magnus called him beautiful, instead of turning away like the word was poison–lies, nothing more, and he saw Magnus smile in return. Darling, the dreaded pet name, became a haven, Alec knowing that with each use of it Magnus put himself just a bit more on the line.

  
“I love you.” He said.

It was a quiet day, just the two of them on the couch, some cooking show on television. Chairman Meow was curled on the floor, and every once in a while Magnus would let his hand drift down from the couch in order to pet the cat.

Alec had always heard that saying the words ‘I love you.’ over and over again cheapened them, but to him it seemed like it only caused them to strengthen. If you meant them, he supposed. That must be the key.

Magnus repeated the same words back. They were just as true in his voice, yet different, the sum total of everything that made him who he was and made him love Alec.

It was comforting, swapping words of care, an easy way to show mutual respect. Alec couldn’t believe it had ever been hard before.


	7. Old Wounds/New Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catarina gives Magnus back his memories.

“Magnus,” Catarina said. She was hesitant, which was wrong. Catarina wasn’t a hesitant person, hadn’t been hesitant with him since the first few weeks of their acquaintance all those hundreds of years ago.

“What is it?” He was preparing himself for the worst, but if he could help take some sort of burden off Catarina’s shoulders, then he was willing to hear it.

She swallowed, her eyes on the journal in Magnus’ brittle grasp. Magnus could see that she was regretting saying anything, but knew that it was too late to take it back now. “About the seventies, and the way you can’t seem to remember them–”

Magnus felt his gut freeze. Suddenly, he very much did not want to hear what she had to say, but did not know why. “What is it?” He instead asked again.

Catarina looked away, her eyes clouded. When she glanced back at him, they were as clear as a bright blue sky. Crystal. “Come with me. I have something I’ve been meaning to give back to you.” She took his hand in hers. “It’s long overdue.”

She led him into her study, closing it with a simple flick of her wrist. “Catarina–” He began.

She only moved to her bookshelf in response, shuffling the medical texts away along with a piece of wood hiding a secret compartment. It took a few minutes, with the numerous charms she had placed. Whatever she was hiding, it was clear that she had taken great care to keep it safe.

“This,” Catarina said, turning back to him with a bottle glowing a faint blue. “Is for you.”

Magnus took it, for it was calling out to him. It fit in his hands like it had always and forever belonged to him, and he had simply forgotten its placement. It was warm in his grip and felt of great power. “A memory?” He guessed.

Catarina nodded. “It’s yours.”

Magnus stared at the bottle, not knowing what to feel. “That was what I was hoping you wouldn’t say.”

“Take it.” She said. “Take it if you want to know who you were, so that you can figure out who you are now.”

“For Alexander?” He asked.

“Yes, for him.” Catarina replied. “But for yourself as well. There’s a reason–”

“–We have our memories. Yes, yes.” Magnus said, and downed the bottled drink in one long gulp, before he could change his mind. He trusted Catarina with his life, after all. Maybe even more than he trusted himself with it.

Light crashed; the world wavered. He opened his eyes and he was gone.

Everything was Camille. He felt her hair, a rough silk between his fingers; her bosom, flush and pressed against his chest; her smile, a sharp thing, a nasty thing, but a beautiful thing as well. She laughed at the edges of his consciousness, like she was playing with him even beyond the grave.

“Camille.” He whispered. Of course the memory was of Camille.

A head turned, and he was face to face with her once again. Only this time, there was no hate and no powerplay.

She smiled at him, and it was sad. Magnus didn’t remember ever seeing her sad, not in the real sense. “Thank you for lying to me.” She said.

Her hair hung limply about her face, tangled in the way it never was. There was no makeup on her cheeks or lips, no perfectly set clothes. She looked vulnerable, a delicate beauty. It reminded Magnus of their first meeting, when she was an elegant woman, well put together and composed with a flair for fun, and he was a man that knew no better.

The sight of her would have moved him to passion years ago. Now, he stood there, his arms crossed over his heart, unsure of what to feel.

He had forgotten the way she held herself, tall and proud. He remembered that he used to appreciate it, appreciate her. The world tipped on its axis–his world–and changed to something else, into something where Camille was almost as beautiful as he had believed early on, in a broken strength kind of way, yet it mattered little.

She was who she was. He was who he was. They were never ones meant to be, not in a way that could ever be good.

He turned away, and he was once again back with Cantarina. The loss was great; loud and ripping.

Magnus didn’t cry. He wasn’t one for tears, despite being tagged as dramatic by many. Yet it was a close call.

“I think I hate her.” He said, placing his head in his hands.

“You don’t. You never did.” Catarina replied.

Magnus wanted to lash out, a petty comfort, but he couldn’t find the energy within himself to start the action. It would mean so little, compared to everything else.

“Everyone else despised her.”

Catarina laid her head against Magnus’ shoulder. “You never were like anyone else.” She whispered into the crook of his neck.

She guided his shaking hands over the empty pages of the journal, helping him write. The pages had been left bare, earlier, almost as if in wait of Camille’s own personal stamp. The writing they produced together was spiked and mean, filled with past hurts and betrayals, but it was real.

He swallowed, the pen falling from his grasp. All these memories, and they only took up a hundred or so pages. Magnus had been alive for four times that.

Catarina was looking at him with worry. “You don’t have to give it to him.”

“Now you’re going soft on me?” Despite her toughness, she would sometimes give Magnus glances filled with utter softness. It was different than the way Ragnor and Raphael–God, were they really dead?–treated him, and he could only thank her quietly in the instances her care shined through.

Catarina’s face hardened back into form as she saw him pick himself up and pull himself together, already teasing and picking at her. She had seen it so many times that she knew what it looked like by then, Magnus’ strength winning out over his pain. “Magnus–”

“He needs to know, if we’re going to do this.”

Catarina placed her hand on his. “It’ll hurt–”

“But memories always do.”

“Yes, it’s true. He loves you now, though, and you shouldn’t be wasting your time.”

Magnus traced the cover of the journal, and the sting was great and powerful. He had not felt so much in decades.

“Yes, he does.” With little effort at all, a smile broke through.


	8. A Friend in Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catarina and Magnus talk.

“Catarina.” Magnus said. He was smiling that smile. The one that meant he was in pain, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. Catarina hated that smile. She’d seen it much too much in her opinion.

“Get that look off your face.” She said, and opened the door for him to slip inside.

They sat together in her living room. Magnus was quiet, and it was disconcerting. He was almost never quiet, except in times of crisis–of the body and of the heart.

She didn’t have to ask if anything was wrong. She knew Magnus; she _knows_.

“The shadowhunter?” She asked.

“His name is Alec.” Magnus replied.

Catarina closed her eyes for a moment. She liked it better when Alec was just ‘that shadowhunter boy’, when she and Ragnor could make jokes about Magnus having a thing for one of the nephilim.

Giving someone a name gave them power. That was why shadowhunters called them warlocks, as if all Catarina and Magnus and Ragnor and Tessa and the many, many others were could be found inside a title considered lacking.

Catarina cursed the boy in her heart, even if she knew in her head that he was not at fault. When Magnus fell, it always hurt to watch. He went tumbling, no parachute, and very rarely was the person he fell for down there, waiting to catch him.

“What has happened?”

Magnus grinned. “Oh, you know.” He crossed one leg over the other, leaned back in her chair like a dishonored king. “He’s just getting married.”

Catarina, for the first time that decade, blanched. “He’s what?”

“Marriage, I’m sure you’ve heard of it.” The words were sarcastic, but Magnus said them as if in rote, and they lost all power because of it.

“Well–” She folded her hands together, tried to think of something to say. “It’s a shadowhunter marriage, so I’m sure it’s between a man and a woman. You said he was gay. There’s no way he’ll ever fall for her.” She swallowed.

Catarina didn’t truly want to encourage this. If the shadowhunter boy– If _Alec_ wanted to get married, that was his prerogative, but Catarina wasn’t sitting by and watching Magnus wait around hoping for a bone, the meat already taken out.

She wasn’t letting what happened with Camille happen again.

“Maybe you should move on.” She gently poked. "This could be a sign.“

Magnus tipped his head back. "When have you ever cared about signs?”

“I’m just saying that maybe you should look elsewhere.” Which was worse for her friend? The numbness of not experiencing love or the wretchedness of falling for someone you shouldn’t?

“He–” Magnus uncrossed his legs and hunched over, hands clasped together as if to hold in all his parts. “He is doing it for his family. He doesn’t want to marry her.” Magnus’ eyes turned cloudy. “He is so selfless.”

 _I don’t care how selfless he is._ The thought hit her with a venomous flare she could not have expected. _He is hurting you. You are hurting._

Catarina leaned back. The clock chimed the hour, and she let the tenseness in her muscles go.

It wasn’t as easy as saying 'Stop, don’t be in love with him.’ She knew that better than anyone else; her late fiancé, a mundane, was still an ache across her soul.

“Alright.” She said. Alright, you care for him. Alright, it is not long now before you love him.

She clasped his hand in hers. “Just know that I am here.”

“You are one of my closest friends, Catarina.” Magnus said. “I only come to you because you have my trust.”

“You’re not a burden, Magnus Bane. Even if sometimes I say you are.”

 _I am here_. She thought. _I am here since he cannot be._


	9. Open Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec wakes up next to Magnus.

The sun crept under Alec’s eyelids, until he was forced into waking. On the bed beside him, Magnus shifted, his ankle bumping against Alec’s leg. “What time is it?” Alec asked.

Magnus magicked his phone from the bedside table. “Seven-thirty.” The table was a foot away, only requiring a slight reach of the arm. Alec snorted, his judgement swallowed up by the pillows under his head. It was just as well–Magnus liked to play at frivolity, but Alec knew it only thrived to mask the seriousness at his core.

“I have to meet Jace for a hunt at nine.” Alec said. His eyes were already drifting closed, his body burrowing into the warmth he had made with Magnus in the night. He didn’t have to ask for Magnus to set the alarm.

He dozed for a few minutes, but the weight of the sun on his face and the impending responsibility upon his back kept him awake. “Do you have any clients today?”

“Hmm,” Magnus said. “I have a meeting at ten-thirty and another at one.” It was the boring, easy talk of people who were not consciously trying to impress. It was morning, they were tired, and there was no point in pretending otherwise.

They migrated towards each other on the mattress, until their bodies started waking along with their minds. Magnus was right there, his skin hot and good to the touch. Alec brushed a kiss to his jaw. “Do you want to?” He asked. His voice was scratchy from disuse.  

Magnus shifted a bit, moving so that his legs could twine with Alec’s. “Alright.”

They hit an easy rhythm of hips knocking into hips, hands slipping under shirts to grasp at skin. It was quiet inside the room, the world still waking up around them, and their breaths were loud in the open air.

After a few moments of rutting, Magnus’ body paused. Alec pulled his face from Magnus’ neck in surprise.  

“Is something wrong?” Magnus asked. He drew a hand down Alec’s cheek. His eyes were still blurry from sleep, but they focused in on Alec with unwavering care.

“What? No.” Alec said. “I just thought that–morning breath or whatever–”

Magnus huffed against Alec’s skin. He moved in one slow grind, and the movement seemed like it would last forever, a tremble that would never stop. “If my breath is such a detriment to you, allow me to go brush my teeth.”

“No.” Alec wrapped his arms around Magnus’ back until he stilled. “I just thought–maybe it would bother you.”

Alec dealt in blood and guts, all shadowhunters did, and he trained until sweat poured into his mouth. He wasn’t picky about something like like this. Magnus, though, he wasn’t sure. Magnus liked his clothes neat and every strand of hair in place. He didn’t care about the family room holding clutter, but if his work became scattered a frown would begin to appear at his temples.

He didn’t, Alec realized, know if morning breath was something Magnus would mind or not mind.

“I promise you,” Magnus said, a slight smile to his mouth. “I have had much worse. A little morning breath isn’t likely to do me in.”

There were times when Alec forgot about the hidden insides of Magnus’ heart. Magnus made it easy, sulking and grinning and glaring as would anyone else. Alec had always assumed warlocks were slow, moving through time like molasses, a mosquito caught in amber. He felt stupid about it later, when faced with Magnus, who was sharp and clear. If anything, when Magnus walked into a room, it was everyone else who were slow.

Magnus brushed his lips against Alec’s: the kindest sting. Their mouths opened and they took each other in, gasping.

Alec still wasn’t sure if he would be able to keep up. Maybe a little while from now he would be left behind, his strides not enough to keep time to Magnus’ fast march. But he knew his place now: breaths coming and going between them, so close in time they might as well be two halves of one person, hearts beating in perfectly synchronized jolts.

Alec flattened his palm along Magnus’ spine, pushing forward despite the insecurities biting at his chest, trying to hold him in place. Now, in the heat of it, when Magnus was kissing at his skin and turning his arms into a shelter, was not the time for hesitancy; now was for the give and take.

And Alec–he wanted so desperately to give.

He took and took as Magnus moved against him, because taking was easy, and he became something he didn’t know he could be, something unsustainable. He took Magnus’ breathe and his voice and every flinch of the body.

In return, he clumsily offered his heart, because what else did he have to give? Magnus looked at it, small and big at the same time, and closed Alec’s fingers back around it and with a kiss to the neck told him to keep it.

Alec thought it to be rejection. Magnus thought it a way he could keep both of them safe.

Their elbows knocked and their teeth scraped. The bedspread was a touch too hot against the skin. It was a grunting, gasping affair, and nothing about it was pretty or beautiful.

Alec cherished it. He didn’t care about either of those things–beauty or prettiness, whatever they so implied. He wanted real. He wanted to rip off all the glamor and take a peek at what was inside. A niche type of gorgeous, that only appealed to those that were world weary and optimistic at the same time.

Magnus was different like this. Alec could see the exhaustion–he could feel it. His body was flesh and bone, and for all his immortality, he was just as likely to succumb to wounds as a mundane. The paint on his fingernails was chipping, leaving little jagged lines of pattern, ugly and unfinished.

Alec was fascinated, he wanted to see it all.

 _Come here, come here, unlock your chest so that I can see inside it._ Alec bit at Magnus’ skin, where the collarbone flared out more perfectly than an angel’s wing. A rosebud of color bloomed at the spot, coming alive under his teeth.

Magnus grabbed his face and kissed him, until both of them were out of breath. It was like drowning–no, it was gentler than that.   

It was with a sigh that they released.

The sun rose a bit higher in the sky, and Alec pressed his cheek to the top of Magnus’ head in comfort. His hair was softer than silk, the heavy product he used absent in the early morning. Alec breathed in, and he smelt sweat and sex and the earthy, natural scent that belonged uniquely to Magnus. It was different than he thought being with a man would be; it was better.

Magnus’ phone ticked down, the alarm shattering the easy quiet. Alec yanked himself from the bed, his hands going straight to the bow leaning against the corner wall. With deft movements, he pulled on his clothing and slung his pouch of arrows back around his shoulders, until he once again looked the part of the stoic man, built for battle, not love.

Still, he paused. His mind torn between two impulses, two lives.

Alec traced over the tender lines of Magnus’ eyelids, who had fallen to sleep and hadn’t woken at the sound of the alarm. Alec was in his gear, his armor, but Magnus was still bare. There were rings under his eyes, a deep purple and blue, and Alec wondered how they had gotten there.

Devoid of his sparkle, someone might have walked past him without being caught, but Alec would always notice. Alec would, in a fit of shame and more than a little relief, allow himself to surrender in the onslaught.

 _I know I could love you._ He thought, Magnus’ blemished skin a flare against his fingers, a burning soothe.

_I’d chose to, if only you would let me._


	10. Small Victories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one gets everything they want, but they keep what they have.

Alec kissed him.

Alec kissed him after telling him that he wanted him, and even though he stuttered the words came out perfectly clear. Alec kissed him after yanking him in by the waist, one big hand around him, like he’s been dying to touch him. Alec kissed him; Alec kissed him like he meant it.

His back was pressed to the wall, his pride was to the wall, his heart to the wall, and Alec was touching each of them with his hands and his lips and his soul. They bit at each other, scratched. There was desperation there, masked as meanness.

“I want you.” Alec breathed, all wondering, all his attention on Magnus, and Magnus folded, so ungracefully as to be embarrassing. He yanked Alec down from his towering height, brought him to an even level. Come get me, come get me, come get me–

They fell backward, together. Fell through sheets of air, and it felt like traveling through water. Everything was glass blown and beautiful, and Magnus wanted so badly to stay there, to not break the pocket of air they had found themselves inside. To not think–

“I want you. With her, it’s just politics. She gets it. She gets it–”

Think about the ‘I want you’. Focus on that.

Alec tumbled against the couch and pulled Magnus down on top of him, his hands going to Magnus’ waist. “You’re so beautiful–”

Don’t, Magnus wanted to say. Don’t pretend like this will ever have a second act. You’re a horny, repressed man who has found someone nice to get his rocks off with before the big heterosexual wedding; treat it that way.

Alec’s hands were everywhere. He was soaking in everything. There was no clearer sign that he was new to this: the act, to him, was like drinking water after a long walk in the desert. There was no fun to it, only desperation, only complete and absolute need. It made something kind, like a warm bath, good for you, into something that almost hurt, a hand too close to a flame.

He pulled at Magnus’ shirt, yanked it out of his pants. His fingers were on the buttons in the next instant. Incessant. Magnus couldn’t turn anywhere that wasn’t Alec, and the line wavered between free and trapped.

A button went skidding against the hardwood, because Alec was good with his hands except when it came to men he wanted to touch. Magnus let Alec push the shirt off his shoulders, let it fall onto the floor along with everything else. It was ruined by that point, anyway.

Alec leaned in, paused. Magnus finally got a view of him from above, his knees on either side of Alec’s hips. His eyes were nice from a height, but like this they looked bigger. Everything looked bigger like this.

“Your–” Alec ran a hand over Magnus’ necklace, a shield between Alec and his chest. Alec’s touch went shy, suddenly; his hands clumsy around Magnus’ neck.

Fingers fumbled the clasp at the back, once, twice. The moment broke. Heat went from burning to a simmer, bodies turned from bruising into aching, and everything became softer. Magnus reached with infinite care around Alec’s grip and stilled his shaking hands.

He plucked at the clasp, and it came apart easily, the necklace falling with a sigh into Alec’s palms.

“Oh,” Alec breathed out, chuckling a little at himself. Magnus had to smile. They looked at each other like that, calm and happy, knowing they were where they wanted to be. A heartbeat; a sigh; a thought.

Alec blinked, his expression crashing, and because he felt so much Magnus could see it, could see the change. Alec was remembering himself, remembering all his burdens that he didn’t consider to be burdens, and the locked-up, tense passion was back. His spine straightened, the muscles under Magnus’ hands pulled tight. It was like making love to metal, hard and unyielding. Cold.

His gaze skittered from Magnus’ eyes to his chest to some far-off point on the other side of the room. Magnus hummed in the back of his throat, nudging Alec’s eye back to him.

Alec swallowed, and he set the necklace next to them on the couch, forgotten. He was trembling, just a little. It was barely noticeable, just a twitch in his stomach, of his lips. Magnus leaned down and pressed their mouths together as silent assurance.

With a great, sweeping motion, as if he had been waiting just for that kiss, Alec hands were back on Magnus, pulling him in, in, in, but this time they scalded. There was part of Magnus that wanted to pause, to see if it was true and there were actual blisters on the bumps of his shoulders.

Alec’s head went down, and Magnus went up, Alec’s hand pressed deep into the small of his back. “Fuck.” He whispered, everything coming apart, his lips rolling over the skin of Magnus’ collar bones, down around his nipples and over his sternum, like he couldn’t pick just one spot.

Magnus dug his nails into the back of the couch, let Alec ravish him as he wanted. Because that was what he was doing–his hands gripping Magnus’ sweat-soaked back, running over his ass, rubbing against his outer thigh. He was a live-wire, and Magnus never knew where he was going to land until he was already there.

Alec bit at the skin on the side of his chest with gentle teeth, running his tongue over each area he bruised with a strange precision. Magnus would laugh if he had the breath. Alec was just as professional in sex as he was in work.

He moaned a little when Alec did the good things, the best things. He was awkward but it wasn’t bad; a fast learner, a dedicated learner. Magnus rubbed his cheek against Alec’s hair, soft and warm, a bright smell to it that hit just right. “Come on, come here–”

Magnus’ stomach lurched, pain and confusion heavy as his body twisted where it didn’t want to go. His arm bent uncomfortably behind him, Alec’s chin digging a wound into his chest.

He had been thrown down on the couch, Alec a weight across him, and the only thing that kept his head from cracking on the armrest was Alec’s hand shooting out to cradle the back of his skull.

Magnus’ mind, frantic from the toss, tried to piece itself together.

“I’m sorry,” Alec whispered into his chest. “Just–”

The door opened, and Alec went quiet. Magnus couldn’t see who was there, but they had paused. Standing, staring. Even the air was taut. Alec wouldn’t look at him, his face scared. Magnus caught his breath, and in it he caught himself.

In that moment, hiding side by side from whoever was in the doorway, Alec Lightwood made Magnus Bane feel small. Revered one minute and defamed the next.

It reminded him of older times, worse times, a gross longing in the way two men touched, desire and fear a twist in each of their hearts. Magnus felt sick. Being with Alec brought him right back to that, of feeling wrong in his own bones, reminded him of that special brand of painful wanting and the worst and best people could bring out in each other.

The door closed, and heels slowly clacked down the hall. Alec was breathing harshly against him, cheek to chest, and Magnus wanted nothing more than to get the touching to stop.

A silence followed. One beat, two. That should be enough even for a shadowhunter’s ears.

“You can get off me.” He whispered. “She’s gone now.”

This time, it was Magnus who couldn’t meet eyes. “Magnus, I–”

“I said to _get off me_.”

Alec acted like a bomb went off, pulling back so fast that Magnus couldn’t find the moment between their bodies pressed together and their bodies far apart.

There was nothing to be ashamed about from Magnus’ perspective. He was made the way he was, and he had long since been done with people who treated him as something to be hidden. This was a reminder, a reinforcement. Alec could do what he wanted, but Magnus couldn’t follow him back down that path.

With the utmost dignity, he bent down to retrieve his shirt and pulled it back around his shoulders, pressing the wrinkles Alec had made flat with patience, ironing out his touch.

“Magnus–”

“Please,” Magnus said, because he was worried of what Alec would say, of what the words might cause him to do. “Just don’t. We’re done here.”

Magnus stood. His joints zig-zagged where they should have curved, and his feet wobbled when they should have stayed strong, but that was temporary. Magnus would make sure to fix it.

Alec got to his feet, following him. A puppy, Magnus thought. He wasn’t sure if the thought was mean or kind.

“Better not to have an affair the day before your wedding, anyway.” He said. “It’s tacky.”

Alec flinched at the slap.

Good. It was childish and stupid, and Magnus knew it, but sometimes you had to take your wins where you could get them. That rotten core part of him revealing itself again, like it always did the moment Magnus thought he was rid of it.

Bringing back a lot of childhood memories, today.

Alec’s eyes were shining. He didn’t cry; he wasn’t that kind of person, but there was suffering in him. Magnus never did well in the face of suffering. He always went soft.

If only you hadn’t cradled my head. He thought. If only you had let it bash into the armrest, then I could call you what you aren’t.

“You have to understand.” Alec said. “My family is important to me, and I have to protect them. Izzy–”

“Don’t talk at me like I’m a child. I understand. I understand completely.” Magnus picked his necklace up from the couch, brought it to his throat. Like some horrific joke, the latch wouldn’t catch.

Alec reached toward him, but his hands held still at the last second. “I can help. I mean, if you want. I would understand if you didn’t.” He broke into a stuttering mess, about how he wasn’t very helpful the first time, about how he was sorry he mentioned that time, though it was but five minutes before, about how he wasn’t worthy, even.

But Magnus wasn’t focused on that. Magnus was focused on those hands.

They hovered there like birds, hesitant but hopeful. Too scared to reach out and to respectful to grab. Complex things, large and deadly around a bow but kind to a sister, a parabatai, a mother and a father.

Magnus grinned, his eyes sharp. What a joke.

“Come here.” He said, because it was funny. Alec as his hired help, putting on his jewelry, waiting on him, right after he had pushed him down into the couch like his body and his wants meant nothing.

They didn’t, in the face of his family, but what good would it be to talk about that? What was true was true. Take a win; take it even when it’s tiny.

Alec stepped up behind him, slipped the necklace from Magnus’ hands. He was careful not to touch Magnus’ fingers as he did it, to let Magnus’ body be his own.

“If that hadn’t happened–” Alec swallowed. His movements were fluid now, because he was helping. He latched the necklace efficiently, but lingered closer than he had to, for longer than he had to.

“The situation hasn’t changed, but my feelings on it have.” Magnus wasn’t mad at him for it, not truly. It was his own fault anyway, getting attached like this. A nephilim. Really, what had he been thinking? “This was always a bad idea, and I’m just now realizing the extent of it.”

“Yeah.” Alec breathed out, as if trying to convince himself as well.

Magnus nodded at him, all business. That was what they were now. That was what they would be, until Magnus moved or Alec died.

“If it were different–” Alec started. He looked determined to say what he had, but what he had wasn’t much.

“It’s not different.” Magnus said. “It is what it is.”

And he walked out the door.


	11. The Sweater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus buys Alec clothes.
> 
> Inspired by [this](http://allofthefanfic.tumblr.com/post/137423357153/so-the-thing-about-good-quality-clothes-is-not) headcanon on tumblr at [allofthefanfic](http://allofthefanfic.tumblr.com/).

Magnus had gone out shopping. If it were anyone else, this wouldn’t be noteworthy. Magnus, however, made every shopping trip an _experience_.

He didn’t magic the clothing he wanted at will. There was no fun or discovery in that. Instead, he dressed in his best shopping clothes–comfortable for walking, but clearly made of materials and patterns belonging to the stylish–and geared up for a mini-adventure.

Anyone with a mind knew that it was more fun to pull a perfectly made winter pea coat from a pile of other mismatched and terrible jackets than it was to be directed right to it by signs or helpful salespersons. It made one feel important, as if they had found the coat all on their own.

Magnus was too self-aware to not know that this was a bit ridiculous, due to reaching to same end result either way: the pea coat, but he didn’t mind being a bit ridiculous in the name of fun. He assumed that it was the same feeling he got traveling on planes when he could much more easily move through portal. There was something charming about it, worthwhile despite, or perhaps because of, its consumption of time.

He was passing a shop he had passed numerous times before–known for its plain, solid colors, mostly in the range of brown and black, nothing for him–when a sweater caught his eye. It was midnight black, simple vertical lines stitched through it, a scoop neck. His mind easily imagined it against his skin, Alec curled up next to him on the couch in it during the fall months, a cup of tea in hand.

He wandered inside, took a closer look. It was similar to the other clothes Alec had worn, familiar. Magnus touched it, and it was as soft as it had appeared from behind the window, maybe even softer. Alec would appreciate that.

His eyes still on the sweater, he called a salesperson to him. “How much?”

 

Alec and Jace were hanging around the institute, Isabelle out with Simon on one of their dates. They were playing a card game that Jace had found buried in one of the forgotten rooms of the building, most likely misplaced due to not being useful for sleeping or being helpful in a fight.

Jace had grinned at him, shaking the game back and forth, and Alec had agreed easily enough. The day was long, the demons scarce, and it was better than waiting around with only their significant others on the mind.

The game was mostly over at that point. Jace had fudged the rules, Alec had scowled, and by then there was no salvaging it. Jace was sitting with his back against the couch with his phone in hand, texting Clary, and Alec was laid out with his head on the armrest in a light dose.   

There was a knock at the door. Alec’s phone buzzed a second later. “That’s Magnus.” He said, springing from the couch.

Jace snorted at him, rolling his eyes at how he and Magnus were attached at the hip, while he tapped his phone against his thigh, waiting for Clary to reply. Alec just rolled his eyes.

Clave law had gotten lax–at least, the Clave equivalent of lax–around Magnus being in the institute. Husbands and wives were allowed in when they pleased. Just because Magnus was a downworlder shouldn’t change things.

It did, of course, but there were ways around that. Years ago, Alec wouldn’t have thought to _ever_ try to circumvent Clave ruling, but now he found himself caring less and less about what they had to say. Especially when it came to him and his family, which was what Magnus was now. His husband. Alec smiled to himself over the word.

“Hey,” He said, unlocking the door. Magnus smirked at him. He wasn’t fooling anyone–if he really wanted, he could sneak in himself, not have to wait for a shadowhunter to let him in. But he played nice, or at least pretended to, and shared the unspoken joke with Alec and his siblings.

“Hello,” He kissed Alec’s cheek: a quick peck to say ‘I missed you’ and ‘I’m here’. “I found you something at the store.” They walked together back to the room where Jace had finally set down his phone.

“Clary have to go?” Alec asked.

Jace frowned, put out. “Yeah, what’s in the bag?” He gestured to what Magnus was cheerfully swinging at his side.

Magnus plopped it on the table with a flourish. “Clothes, for Alec.”

Jace started grinning. “Magnus buys you clothes?” **  
**

“He hasn’t before.” Alec eyed the bag. His husband knew him enough not to buy him some type of sparkly confection, but still. Clothes were clothes, he didn’t need some specially bought sort of thing.

“Is it rainbow patterned? Pink with purple cheetah print?”

Magnus shot Jace a superior look. “You only mock that which you cannot pull off yourself. And no, it is not, as you imply, the necessities of a drag queen’s first wardrobe.” Alec coughed. “My husband is gay, but he is not that gay.”

Magnus shoved the package in Alec’s direction. “Open it.” He was smiling, and the smile made him look younger than his many years. It wasn’t so much that he physically seemed younger, Alec thought, just that there was less of a burden to his face, the pain and loss he had experienced in his long life hidden under his joy.

Alec opened the package. Anything to get Magnus to keep looking like that. He unfolded a sweater, a simple black. There was nothing special or significant about it at first glance. Alec immediately loved it.

He looked to Magnus, a grin coming uncontrollably to his face. “Thank you.” The words softened a little on a dip, cherished.

Magnus’ eyes crinkled just that bit further. “You’re welcome.”

Jace missed the prime moment to mock them, having just then received a text from Clary. Alec paid for it in spades later, though, Isabelle getting in on it when she saw how often the sweater was added to Alec’s usual rotation.

 

Alec couldn’t say what it was about the sweater that he liked so much.     

It was soft, but he already had soft clothes. It was easy to slip on, but so were other things in his wardrobe. He toyed briefly with the idea that he liked it because it was a present from Magnus, and that was part of it, but he wouldn’t wear just anything because someone he loved had bought it for him, not that that would mean he loved them any less.  
**  
** He just liked it. The way it looked on his frame. There was nothing about it that made it stand out when hanging with the rest of his clothes in his closet, but when he slipped it over his head and down his stomach and he looked into the mirror, he liked what he saw. 

It was him, but it was him at his best. He felt  _good looking_  in it, especially when he wore it out to dates, and Magnus smiled a secret smile at him. A smile anyone could look at and like but only Alec could appreciate the true depth of. 

Years later, it still hung prominently in his closet, a favorite by far. There were holes in the cuffs and at the waist, and Magnus despaired, but knew that it only meant that the sweater was well-loved.    


	12. What's Yours is Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camille and Alec have a chat.

Camille liked to play with pretty things, and this boy was clearly pretty. Big eyes and the standard tall, dark, and handsome physique. Not for her, though, a bit too immature and repressed. Magnus had fun pulling apart all that hurt and bandaging it up with kind words and gentle touches; Camille preferred to bite.

“You broke up decades ago.” The boy, Alec, was saying. She supposed that maybe he wasn’t a boy, not by shadowhunter standards. Of course, from the viewpoint of an immortal who had lived and experienced the pleasantries and pains of life twice over, all shadowhunters, even the ones with wrinkles carved deep into their faces, were no better than children.

She knew that he was trying to make her feel insecure in her position. He obviously had no idea of who he was dealing with.

“That’s true.” She said. “I remember when he came to me after so long away, all tied up and sad over a shadowhunter boy about to be married. It was pitiful, really, but I smoothed out those kinks, as a woman does.”

She didn’t think it possible, but Alec turned more rigid, his back bowing into a painful line. He was a man in the mold of a soldier, like one of those green little army men mundane children played with, small and insignificant, one of thousands. She took a second to wonder how he and Magnus ever moved together under the sheets. Magnus was fluid and graceful, like herself, and it was strange and entertaining to imagine him wrapping himself around this boy, trying desperately to teach him how to make love.

Oh, Magnus. She thought. You always were attracted to the ones you had to save. Of course, they never have a clue of all the saving you’re in need of.

“Tell me why you’re here.” Alec bit out.

Camille stretched her neck, the fangs of her teeth poking over her ruby red lips. This was fun; she hadn’t had fun like this in ages. Magnus always had something entertaining to share, whether it be his body, his mind, or the people he surrounded himself with. “Can’t we have a chat, downworlder to shadowhunter?"

Alec grimaced. The boy was privileged in his status, and he was still smarting from the blow Magnus had delivered to his pride not too long ago over his favor of a law that skewed itself to the benefit of his people at the disadvantage of hers and Magnus’. It was interesting to see, for she had never met a shadowhunter who cared for the lives of those outside their species, not in the sense that they could matter just as much as those with that precious angel blood. Magnus had told her they existed, once, but she had no cause to believe him until now.

“So then talk.” He was blunt, fast, but there was something real behind the eyes.

Camille smiled. Yes, she liked this boy. Was that a passion underneath all that hard-edged exterior? Maybe Magnus had more sense in going after him than she had thought.

A mutual destruction, then. How fascinating.

“I have something I think you’d be interested in hearing.” She said, and watched as the gossamer line she hooked around the boy’s neck brought him leaning in at her call. “About Magnus. He’s of an interest to us both, isn't he?”

And she saw, the fangs cradled by her lips humming with satisfaction, as the name of her former lover brought the boy metaphorically to his knees.

Blood was about to be spilt, and Camille wasn’t one to waste it.


	13. Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "your hand  
> touching mine.  
> this is how  
> galaxies  
> collide."  
> \--Sanober Khan

**Alec’s hands were unlike many Magnus had held in his lifetime.**

They were as white as snow and looked cold to the touch–Magnus had certainly been stung more than once in his lifetime by that coloring–but when Alec wrapped his fingers around Magnus’ fingers they were as warm as the flush on Alec’s face. A springtime warmth. A summer warmth. The kind of warmth that made Magnus want to bask.

The contradictions didn’t end at the skin; they continued into function. Alec’s hands, when Magnus first saw them, were held in perfect form over his bow, the fingers strong and sure in their movements as they released an arrow into the heart of his enemy. It was a ruthless kind of beauty that couldn’t be faked, and Magnus could not lie and say he had never been attracted to it before.

But then Alec extended a hand in the summoning circle, his fingers shy and twitching, and Magnus realized that this man wasn’t ruthless at all, not in the important sense. You could kill, over and over again, and still have a tender center. At least, this was what Magnus believed now. He wasn’t sure if this belief made him a better or worse person.

He watched those hands from then on–the way they hovered over their parabatai as if they were unworthy of touch, how they clinched into steel cages of shame until the veins in them grew uglier and more real at their surface, the way they unwound, just that tiniest bit, at the contact of their sister. They were fascinating hands. Magnus wouldn’t mind if those hands wanted to touch him.

**Alec had never met a man who painted his nails.**

It was something that made him think of Isabelle–up in her room, teasing him from the end of her bed as she carefully applied polish in painstaking layers. She made something time-inducing and detailed look effortless. Alec thought that this ability must be something his sister and his–whatever-he-was shared, that easy persona of Magnus’ finely crafted with the most talented hands. 

Magnus’ hands were smooth and clear, in the way shadowhunter hands never were. Alec hadn’t thought about his runes being different to the norm, until his and Magnus’ fingers interlocked, swirling black on a backdrop of white held against un-pricked brown skin. He had always seen those without runes as other. It was a strange realization to come to, that Magnus probably didn’t think that way.

Though his hands were unmarked, Magnus was skillful in his craft. He could conjure blue wisps with the snap of his fingers, cause a hurricane of magic with the subtlest movement of the wrists. He was careful about it, the way he worked with spells and potions and curses, each touch of the finger used only after deep consideration.

Alec wouldn’t have expected it from him, not in the beginning, though later he thinks that he should have. Even in that first meeting, Magnus’ hand was soft in his as they stood tall around the summoning ring. He hadn’t recognized that softness then, too caught up in his head, but he would. Alec would keep the memory of that touch safe in his chest, when Magnus’ hands reached to cup his face close as they kissed for the first time, his patient brush of fingers almost as bruising as the brush of his lips.


	14. A Little Confidence Never Hurt Anybody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus is invited by his boyfriend to a party. (AU Alec/Magnus)

Magnus wouldn’t look at Church. He knew he’d see a pair of beady eyes judging him from behind all that fur.

“Chairman. What do you think?” He did a little spin. The movement was jerky and half-complete, but he had been thinking about what Clary said, about his fanciful hand movements when he did his magic in the alternate realm. It wouldn’t be bad to have some of that gracefulness if he was to pull off what he was trying to pull off.

Chairman tilted his head to one side. Magnus, though he praised himself on knowing his cats, could not determine if the expression was approving or disapproving.

He blinked heavily a couple times, moving quickly to the kitchen in order to start some tea. He only had an hour before Alec’s institute party, this one a New Years type deal, heavy extravagance, and he needed the steady warming of tea in his stomach to calm his nerves.

As the tea settled, he handled the tea cups carefully, his fingers looping over the embroidered flowers.

Alec had grinned at them the first time he saw them.

“Really?” He had asked, picking one up and turning it side to side. His hands, big, beautiful things, engulfed the delicate cup like it was nothing, and Magnus felt his shoulders pull inward.

“If you don’t like them–”

“No, no,” Alec had said, moving to set his back against counter. He lounged like a king, confident and sure, the vulnerable skin of his stomach not protected by crossed arms or clasped hands. “Why don’t you make us something?” He asked, a wolfish grin on his face.

Magnus had swallowed. His throat was dry. Tea would be a good thing, a comforting thing, in that moment. “What would you like?”

Alec pushed off the counter, his free hand skimming Magnus’ hip as he did so. Magnus was glad it was Alec holding the cup, for he feared he might have dropped it at that touch.

“Surprise me.” Alec had said, leaning down for a moment into Magnus’ space before moving away again, as impossible to catch as air.

What am I doing? Magnus thought, watching Alec from behind the safety of the kitchen counter as he made himself at home on Magnus’ couch.

Magnus’ hands twitched. Tea, right.

He thought about Alec, about his vibrancy. It wasn’t like a sun, get too close and you’ll burn. More like a lake or a river–cool, calm, mysterious. Set one foot in and you’ll never want to get out. He thought about Alec, his shiny shoes and his many acquaintances, his parties full of high-class people, but also the Alec who would go to Java Jace with his sister every weekend, who took Magnus to a theater instead of a fancy restaurant on their first date, because he wanted Magnus to be comfortable.  

He thought about Alec, carefully, and chose a tea just for him.

Alec’s face did a strange grimace.

“You don’t like it?” Magnus asked. He felt ridiculous, being sad over tea.

Alec blinked, once or twice. “I like it fine.” And took another, smaller, sip.

Magnus, though he tried his hardest, couldn’t help the smile stamping its way across his mouth.

“What is it?” Alec asked. He set the teacup down, trying to look suave and knowing, but he really was just a man, after all.

“Nothing. If you like the tea so much, then I’ll make you another batch.”

Alec’s eyebrows did a tiny little twitch, his eyes narrowing. “That won’t be necessary.”

Alexander Lightwood, head of one of the biggest businesses in town, seen out and about with a different guy on the arm every week or so (at least, according to the papers), and one of the most handsome and smoothest people Magnus had the pleasure of meeting, was sitting on his couch and pretending to like his tea, just because Magnus had made it special.

It was invigorating. He could use some of that feeling now.

“You can do this.” Magnus muttered to himself. It was just a party, only a party.

Only a party his newly christened boyfriend was hosting, where he would be expected to talk to everyone and hopefully not make Alec look bad in front of multiple colleagues.

He swallowed. “Wish me luck, Chairman.”

Chairman Meow mewled at his back in encouragement, and he walked out the door on shaky step.

…

He was thinking about heading home a few feet from the lit-up building, wiping off the eyestuff he had put on. It was a little much, after all. He had felt good in it earlier, like someone roguish and interesting, but now he was sure he didn’t have the confidence to pull it off.

“Why didn’t I just wear the same thing I always wear?” He whispered to himself, and as he did so a woman and her beau knocked shoulders with him, turning twin angry expressions at his person as he stumbled from the impact.

He sighed, shaking out his stiff shoulders. He had planned this, weeks in advance, but he never had the courage to go through with it. Today would be the day.

…

“Magnus Bane.” He told the bouncer. The room was big, but people were crushed into each and every nook and cranny. Magnus felt small, invisible, at the same time he felt like he was being signaled out and found wanting by everyone in the room.

The bouncer looked him over, a bitter smirk to his lips. “Yeah, I know you. Come on.”

And Magnus walked in, disquieted by the look. He wondered if it was a normal part of sleeping with Alec Lightwood, those looks.

He spotted Alec over by the bar, a glass in hand. He was in the middle of a circle of people, all staring up at him, wanting for him to lead them through one of his many stories. Magnus hesitated, rocking on the spot. It wasn’t that he thought he was so terrible, just that to break into Alec’s monologue like that seemed rude. If he was one of those people, he would want to hear it all the way through.

There was a moment where Alec used a hand gesture, big and bright, and everyone around him laughed. He took that second to glance across the crowded room, his eyes hawk-like. They locked onto Magnus with precision, and he was in the next instant making his way through the throng of people, headed straight for him.

Magnus almost put a hand up and over his eyes, to hide the glitter, but didn’t. There was no point. Alec had seen, the others had seen, and he wasn’t going to let their judgements take away from the fact that on application, Magnus had felt good. Like reuniting with a part of himself he had long forgotten existed.

“Magnus,” Alec said, stopping in front of him. He looked him over like he did the first night they met, heavy and meaningful, but the grin was gone. He appeared stunned, for a man who always seemed to know what was going on.

“Do you like it?” Please don’t be like the tea incident Magnus hoped, almost inanely.

Alec shook his head, all slow, like he couldn’t get enough.

“I love it. You look stunning.” And yes, Magnus thought, his mind secretly making fun, the moves would be put on thick tonight.

Alec brushed a kiss against Magnus’ cheek. “I really do.” He whispered, surprisingly sincere, and Magnus had to kiss his cheek right back.

“I’ll be glad to kiss you at midnight.”

Magnus puffed up, his fancy jacket, fitted just right, a gentle warning. “And I suppose I’ll be glad to kiss you as well.”

Alec raised an eyebrow, his mouth coming up into a smile, and Magnus gratefully took his hand, being lead to the group Alec had been talking to earlier.

“My boyfriend, Magnus.” Alec introduced.

And Magnus knew, that in Alec’s eyes, he wouldn’t be intruding on anything.


	15. Strip Away My Layers So That You Can Touch Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Building a bridge so that I can meet you.

Magnus was looking at him like he could believe it. He wasn’t shocked or angry just--resigned.

Alec wished he was anything else.

"I'm sorry--" He started, because he was, he _was_. Magnus just smiled at him, his eyes unreadable. After being together for so long, Alec should know of ways to get beyond those walls.

"I understand, Alec." He said, and Alec felt like if he kept looking Magnus in the eye he might crumble, but he thought that right then he deserved it. So they stared at each other, gazes locked. "I understand, it's just..."

And Magnus took a moment to pause. He was being careful with Alec, like always. He shouldn't have to do that, Alec thought. "It's just kind of sad."

Alec blinked. Out of all the things he could have said. It's sad?

When Alec left Magnus' apartment, key burning like a untold secret in his back pocket, the shapes of Magnus' mouth around the words 'It's sad.' repeated over and over in his head. Skipping like a scratched disk.

...

Isabelle was looking at him.  

"What?" He asked.

"What's up with you and Magnus?" She said. She was twirling a piece of hair around her finger as if she was in a teenage movie ("You have to watch it." Magnus had said, brandishing a copy of Mean Girls. "It's a time honored classic." They had mostly given up the plot halfway through for kissing, but Magnus hadn’t seemed to mind.). Despite Isabelle’s carefree demeanor, her smile was all shark.

Alec returned her stare with a flat look his own. "If you want to tell me off, Iz, just go ahead and do it."

Isabelle pouted. "But that takes away all the fun." She crossed one leg over the other, her expression turning serious. "If it's about that moment in the loft--"

“--It’s.” Alec sighed. The moment came back in flashes. Middle of the day. Clary needing help (again). Magnus flirting the way he always did, almost as if on autopilot. A spare comment had hit just a little too close to home, was a little too honest. He had felt as if Jace and everyone else there would suddenly know, and had pulled back from Magnus as if stung.

Honestly though, Magnus flirted all the time. It would have been weirder if he didn’t make comments. Alec used to be jealous--alright, still was jealous, if he was truthful--but then Magnus had asked him to dinner and laughed with him and kissed him in the comfort of his doorway, giving out appreciative statements all the while, and Alec knew that there was a big difference between someone Magnus found attractive and someone Magnus was actually interested in.

If Magnus was still interested.

"You should talk to him.” Isabelle said. She was looking at Alec as if she loved him, dearly and truly, and it hurt a bit.

He swallowed. “You’re one to talk.” Alec coughed out the emotion in his throat. “What are you even doing with Sheldon?”

“It’s Simon.” Isabelle shot back. She was quick to stick up for the guy, and that had Alec thinking that it was more serious than it had first appeared. He only wished his sister could find less annoying dates. “And don’t think I don’t know you got that from Magnus. You two seem to make each other worse.”

Alec thought back on some of Magnus’ more noteworthy snarks and smiled a bit. At first, he had found them frustrating, most of them targeting Jace. But good wit was something that couldn’t be easily disliked, not from someone otherwise easily likeable, and Magnus had it in spades.  

“I thought you said we were good for each other?” The words came simply off his tongue. Something so long denied, that he still shocked himself as he said them.

“You know what I mean, you’re bad in the good ways.” Isabelle said, patting his knee a little harder than necessary.

Talk. To. Him.

…

Magnus was enjoying a rather beautiful wine, when a body smacked inelegantly against the door of his apartment.

A second later, the lock clicked, and Alec came sprawling into the room, his cheeks flushed. Magnus put down his wine, just in case.

“I don’t--” Alec said. He paused, looked to the ground, looked back to Magnus. His eyes were so bright, as if the feeling in them could barely be contained. It bruised Magnus’ heart a little, unexpectedly. Maybe a bit more expectedly, as of recently.

Alec took a breath. Started again. “I’m not ashamed of you.” He walked closer, until Magnus could feel his heat. “I know it might have looked like that--You’re amazing. I wouldn’t be. Ashamed.” He said each word with utmost conviction, even when they fell brutally and clumsily from his lips, as if they formed the most important phrase he had or would ever say.

Magnus’ mouth trembled.

Alec wrapped his arms around himself. “You’re laughing at me.”

“No,” Magnus said, because Alec couldn’t be further from the truth. Magnus ceded a tiny bit of control, and stopped trying to prevent his smile from flourishing in the way it naturally wanted to. “It’s just that you’re lovely.”

“Oh.” Alec said. His arms dropped.

They stared at each other for a moment, two closed-off people awkwardly met with the very clear truth that the person in front of them cared a bit more than previously thought. Willing opening their mouths to praise even as it exposed a bit of vulnerable flesh in the middle.

It wasn’t entirely a surprise, but it was pleasant nonetheless.  

“I’m trying.” Alec said.

“I know.” Magnus replied.

There were times when Magnus wondered just what he was doing, taking Alec by the hand. He was so repressed it pained a little. Naturally funny without anyone around to appreciate it and loaded with so many responsibilities as eldest that his back hunched under the pressure. Magnus had made it a point to stay away from closet cases and shadowhunters, adding the two together seemed like bad luck.

Now was not one of those wondering times. “Come here.” He said, and Alec reached for him.

Alec reached, moving forward even though everything he knew was behind his back.

He bit his lip, curling his strong fingers around Magnus’ like they were meant to be there, two people stepping toward each other purposefully.

  
Step by step, until knees and chests and lips met the other, shedding inhibitions in their wake.  


	16. I'll Trip You Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was so much Alec didn't know, and he both loved and hated Magnus for showing him it.

“I have an important question for you.”

They were sitting in a booth at Taki’s, Magnus’ hands covering Alec’s.

Magnus’ expression was fake-serious. Alec could tell, because there was shine lying only half-hidden at the corners of his eyes. Even though it was so clearly a joke waiting to happen, Alec still felt his stomach lurch, as if Magnus was going to lay down some irredeemable news, like he wanted to break up or that he had gotten himself a downworlder lover in the three days Alec had been at Idris with family last weekend.

“You’re freaking out.” Magnus observed.

“No, I’m not.” Alec replied, obviously freaking out. Well, it was obvious to Magnus. Others might have mistaken Alec for a newly cemented brick wall.

Magnus changed tactics. “I promise it’s not anything bad.” He paused. “Well, I suppose maybe if you--”

“Just tell me.” Alec said, the only one who had a hope of bluntly cutting through Magnus’ vibrant sentence strings and evasive phrasing.

Magnus squeezed Alec’s hands, amused. “Alright then. Question: do shadowhunters watch movies?”

Alec was entirely caught off guard, which was uncomfortable for someone who spent most of their time on guard. Only Magnus. “What?” He asked.

“I admit, I’m a little--” He waved a bejeweled hand. “Ignorant of shadowhunter customs. For a while, I assumed you spent your free time training, or stabbing each other with blades.” Alec took a second to be offended. “But clearly you have leisure time. You are here with me, after all.”

Alec wanted to say that Magnus wasn’t an afterthought, someone he used to make himself feel better or as an outlet for his stresses. At least, he wasn’t anymore.

Alec didn’t know how to say this, though, so he turned to the one topic he always felt comfortable discussing: his family.

“I used to buy Max manga and comic books. I’m not, like, completely oblivious to mundane stuff.”

They took a moment of silence for the word ‘used’.

Alec cleared his throat. “Izzy watched those films with Simon. Star Trek or something--”

“Star Wars,” Magnus cut in. “Please don’t have any conversations with nerdy mundanes. That mistake could cost you an arm.”

Alec, oblivious to nerdy mundanes other than Simon, if his previous bodily incantation counted, as well as any pop culture references Magnus might have made, only shrugged.

“What about a movie theatre?” Magnus asked. “Have you ever been to one of those?”

Alec shook his head. “Why would you go to one when you could just watch the movie at home?”

It seemed like common sense to Alec, who always enjoyed the dates he and Magnus had in Magnus’ loft, where it was just the two of them and Chairman Meow, but Magnus was looking at him all saddened, like Alec had once again missed out on something he considered fitting under the umbrella of Important Life Experiences. The phrase was capitalized, because Magnus had a way of talking like he was putting air quotes around it.

They went back to their food, which had gotten cold while they talked, the conversation gradually moving into different topics.

Alec wasn’t stupid. He knew his boyfriend had not forgotten.

…

It was Friday night, which Alec usually got off duty unless there was a big emergency with the Clave. He spent the time with Magnus, who called the evenings date nights.

"You look good." Alec said, when Magnus opened the door to his loft. Alec was trying to be more considerate about these things. Isabelle always appreciated it when someone commented on her outfits, so Alec figured that maybe it would work with Magnus.

Magnus had clearly dressed up for tonight, he could tell. Alec just didn't know exactly how he had dressed up more than he usually did.

At any rate, his compliment got Alec a smile, so he guessed that he had done something right.

"Hello, darling." Darling--Alec was still getting used to it. It wasn't a bad feeling to be called precious, not at all. Maybe a little embarrassing, but Alec could work through it.

"Hey,” He said. “Are we going somewhere?"

Magnus raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think that?"

Alec waved a hand at Magnus'--everything. "You dressed up." He said. It was pretty obvious.

Magnus smiled at him, like he wanted to laugh. "I didn't know that you noticed." And there was a strange glow about him then, as if he was preening for Alec. "I thought you just said that to be your polite self."

Alec felt caught-out. "There's nothing wrong with being polite."

Magnus leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Alec's temple. "No, darling, you're right. There's nothing wrong with it at all."

Magnus shut the door behind him as he stepped out of the loft, locking it with a bolt of magic.

Alec was still fascinated with Magnus' magic, with the way he moved his hands when he casted spells. He remembered the shock of giddy surprise he got the first time he realized Magnus did magic more around him than the others, like he was showing off.

"You're also right about the fact that I have plans outside of the loft for tonight, though I wouldn't be opposed if we found our way back here at the end of them."

Alec grinned bashfully, his mind flashing to himself and Magnus wrapped around each other under the bed sheets, the curtains closed but the lamp on.

"Come on, this will be--interesting." He grabbed Alec's hand, pulling him along with him down the stairs and out into the open air. The sky, a brilliant hue of navy, was in the process of settling into midnight blue. The moon was hanging gently within the wash of color.

Alec enjoyed the feel of Magnus' fingers wrapped about his own--a warm press of digits, a steady interlocking of joints--until Magnus pulled away, like he always did when they entered into public spaces.

Alec frowned to himself. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate Magnus' patience with him--he did, so much--it was just that, more and more as of recently, he was starting to get annoyed at the fact that Magnus thought that it was necessary.

If it wasn't for Alec, Magnus would be wrapping his arms around him right now, maybe even kissing his cheek or lips.

He was shocked at the yearning he had for it in that instant. Alec felt those invisible walls come down again, the ones keeping him from all the things he wanted. He hadn’t noticed them in so long, being with Magnus, and it hurt to feel them now.

“Ready?” Magnus asked, smiling. His eyes were so kind.

Alec felt his heart break, just a little, unexpectedly. “Yeah,” He said, Magnus miles away. “Let’s go.”

…

“A movie theatre?” Honestly, Alec wasn’t really that surprised. There was even a bit a pride in knowing his boyfriend so well.

“It’ll be fun.” Magnus said.

Those words were usually when Alec started to worry, but this was a theatre, not a club or a fancy party, so he should be able to handle it. He started forward, keeping his body between the rush of people and Magnus, shielding him.

There were mundanes crawling all over the place, and Alec wasn’t glamoured. The first time he went out with Magnus like this--”I’m not looking like I’m going on a date by myself.” Magnus had said.--was nerve wracking, thinking everyone was staring at him. The more he did it, though, the more clear it became that the only one staring was Magnus, the mundanes giving the same amount of fucks about him that most shadowhunters usually had towards them.

Alec let Magnus pick the movie, even when Magnus asked his preference, only really there to spend time with his boyfriend.

Magnus led them into the darkened theatre. As Alec’s eyes half-adjusted to the dimness, he considered the possibility of breaking out a night vision rune. He always carried a stele in the side of his right boot, just in case.

They moved together up the walkway, the way paved in little lights glued into the floor. The narrow space opened into a large room, one wall utterly decimated by a towering screen that rose from floor to ceiling. The pictures on it were bigger than life-size, almost as if by magic, and Alec had never seen anything at all like it.

He stared, utterly transfixed by mundane creation.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Magnus smiled. “For all their faults, mundanes can imagine the most incredible things.”

Alec felt as knowledgeable as a child in that moment, small and wondering.

He could pinpoint the part of the anatomy best to hit in order to kill an enemy on ten different species; he could recite each and every rune by memory, of which there were thousands; he could fire an arrow faster and more precisely than anyone he had ever trained with, and had been burned with hundreds upon hundreds of envious stares for his skill. And yet--he never thought to believe that something like what Magnus was showing him existed.

Ants. That was what Alec called them. Ants that could build mountains.

Magnus was laughing at him. He could feel it even if he couldn’t see it.

“It’s just that you’re so fascinated.” Magnus said, as they took their seats. Alec sat quietly, lost because of what was revealed to him.

Alec sought out Magnus’ hand in the dark, and Magnus took it easily. I want to know all you know. Alec thought, looking at him, and he felt his worldview turn just an inch, just enough for him to realize his own ignorance.

…

A door had unlatched itself, and Alec didn’t bother with trying to lock it back up.

“Why does it matter if she lost the ring?” He whispered, confused. The mundane on-screen was frazzled, sitting on the kitchen floor with her head in her knees and her hands in her hair. “It’s just a piece of jewelry, right?”

There were antiques that were passed down within generations of the Lightwood family because of what was inscribed in them--powerful names or powerful runes. The ruby red necklace Magnus had put over Isabelle’s neck, which warmed Alec to think about, was one, because there was a protection spell cast onto it. The ring the mundane women was crying about looked plain, just a clear crystal on a gold band, no identifiers.

“It was an engagement ring.” Magnus whispered back, his hot breath welcome at Alec’s ear. “They’re expensive, but, even more importantly, they’re a symbol. A marriage symbol.”

Alec’s eyebrows furrowed, trying to place it in an area of his mind where it would suddenly make sense. It was an unhappy experience, being so unknowing about so many things around Magnus. Maybe he could go to Clary, ask her about these things. She had lived as a mundane; she should know.

Alec paid close attention to the film, feeling better as he watched and understood. Guns he knew about. Computers, too. Those were clear and had purpose.

During a particularly tense scene--Magnus and he could take out those gunman in an instant--Alec heard the unmistakable sound of heavy breathing and the shuffling clothing. His eyes ripped away from the movie to the back of the theatre, where two teenage mundanes were captured in a passionate embrace. Alec felt blood run up into his face.

Magnus turned to see what he was staring at. “Oh,” He said, completely unfazed. “Sometimes it is mundane practice to make out in darkened movie theaters.”

“And you couldn’t have told me this?” Alec hissed, turning away and putting up a hand, as if that could ward off the image of the two teenagers up in the balcony.

“How could I have known that two young mundanes would pick this theatre to experiment in?” Magnus sounded questioning, as if he was actually expecting Alec to answer.

“It’s wrong.” Alec gritted out.

“What is, darling?” Magnus had placed his hand back over Alec’s, and the way he said ‘darling’, all soft and quiet and just for Alec’s ears, helped him calm.

It wasn’t only mundanes who did this. Alec had, on one unfortunate occasion, been witness to Jace locking lips with a faire waitress. Vampires were pretty open with their affection, too. “It’s just--It’s private.” He said.

“Not all feel that way.” Magnus said.

“I feel that way.” Alec shot out. He wanted to leave, suddenly. He wanted out.

“I know you do, sweetheart. That’s perfectly OK.” He was looking worried now, and Alec felt bad for making him that way.

“You don’t think less of me?” He said, and his voice stuttered over the words.

Magnus stood up. “Come with me.” He said, and Alec followed him--out of the theatre, out of the building, out into a small enclave of trees hidden behind the mundane parking lot.

The wind whipped at Alec’s eyes, causing them to sting. Again, he felt like a child, but this time he was without wonder and holding in fear.

They sat on the curb, Alec leaning into Magnus, the sides of their shoes pressed together--dirty black utilitarian boots next to shiny gold lace-ups.

“I know that a couple teenagers kissing wouldn't have upset you that much.” Magnus said.

“I'm sorry.” Alec said, because he felt rotten and ashamed.

“Don't be sorry.” Magnus told him. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don't--” Alec leaned back, jerky and frustrated. His hands reached into the air for an answer that wouldn't come. “I don't know all these things.” He said.

The things he didn’t say: And you do; you are so much in one person, someone impossible to contain; you’ve done every sex act under the sun; I’d bet my Lightwood ring that you’ve made out in a million theatres, and I can't even hold your hand in the daylight.

Alec’s mind crashed, doubt upon doubt hitting each other, weighing down his thoughts. It was as if he had already lost Magnus to something better--no, not better, something more.

Magnus knocked the side of his foot into Alec’s, as if to reach out to him in some way. His expressions twisted, his ankle bending uncomfortably.

“What are you--” And he was unzipping Alec’s boot, right out there on the parking lot curb of a mundane movie theatre.

Alec tried to yank back, but Magnus’ fingers were incessant. “Leave it alone.” He said.

Magnus pulled the blade from Alec’s shoe. He tossed it upwards, and the blade temporarily morphed into a pinwheel suspended in air, before it came thundering back down to earth, landing with a delicate give into Magnus’ palm.

Alec might have been a bit distracted by the image of Magnus wielding his stele, but he shook himself out of it. “Give it back.”

Magnus tapped the end of it against his knee. He tilted his head, and on anyone else the tilt would be thoughtful. “I think not.” On Magnus, it was outright defiant.

Alec let out a huff of flabbergasted breath. “What the hell?” He said, trying his hardest to be angry. It only half-worked.

Magnus sprung to his feet. “Come and get it.” He teased.

It was a distraction. Alec knew it; Magnus knew it. There was something behind the door that neither wanted to touch, despite it already having been unlatched, as if whatever it was would hurt both of them irrevocably.

They just wanted a day. An easy day, together, where they didn't have to look at ugly truths or half-hidden faults, and Alec didn't think there was anything wrong with that.

Magnus took off, his limbs a blur, and he was fast, faster than expected, climbing further and further away up that hill.

Alec tried his damndest to keep up, arms and legs pumping, hoping to God he didn't have to play dirty.


	17. The Beholder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus didn't need anyone telling him his eyes were alright to look at, thank you very much. He had done that himself for centuries, and no one else’s opinion on the matter could hold more weight than his own; he had made sure of it. 
> 
> Still, it was nice to know Alexander Lightwood’s thoughts, especially if they referenced him.

Magnus’ body felt more alive than it had in decades. 

He stretched out from his neck all the way down to his toes, letting every kink in his joints unfurl themselves. The brush of his back against the satin of the bedspread was almost painful in the sensations it brought out: the vulnerable flesh of his shoulder blades a rough scratch where Alec had dug in his nails and hadn’t let go. 

His eyes flickering open, Magnus wetted his lips. He tasted blood, the skin of them cracked by Alec’s own. Every move he made felt raw, more than anything, like the touches Alec had left--which were, it seemed, everywhere imaginable--were there to stay. 

It wasn’t that he was so good a lover. The man still had a lot to learn, his touch too soft and too hard in turns, his face buried deep into Magnus’ neck even as they took their fill, as if embarrassed, not by the act itself, necessarily, but by his clear lack of skill. Magnus supposed it would be hard for him, as someone who prided himself on his craft, whether it be the bow and arrow, diplomacy, or, as Magnus was sure it would be in the future, the pleasures one got up to in the night. 

No, Alec wasn’t a good lover, not yet. But it had been so long since someone had taken Magnus to bed and hadn’t let him leave for days on end. Alec was intent on tracing every line and every mark with his hands, and later again with his tongue. There was no place he was uninterested in, not even the heels of the foot or the crest of the ear. Magnus was, though he hated to admit it, a tad overwhelmed. 

Magic leaked through him as he stretched, himself not enough to contain it. The power was light, and proud, and happy, and his magic was almost never all those things at once. He savored it. 

“Your eyes.” A voice murmured. 

Magnus froze. He turned a head, only to see Alec’s cheek pressed against the mattress, his own eyes wide. 

Alec had beautiful brown eyes, honey-dipped. They were fascinating things, could go from hot to cold as fast as quicksand swallowed. Magnus wasn’t under the impression that Alec was never cold. Oh, he was. He could be downright frosty, just as much or even more than Magnus himself. As for now, it was interesting, the chill those eyes could take on. Magnus knew from experience that it would become trite, even frustrating in a bone-deep, nerves-on-fire sort of way not too far into the future. 

This was alright with Magnus. He would rather see the grotesque side now than pretend there never was one. His experience with Camille had taught him well. 

Those brown eyes were studying him now, a calculated air in their depths. They were born for observation, and that was what they did, though now they were not cold. Magnus might even describe them as being hot, a fire in their shine. 

Magnus’ eyes were never a simple thing, though sometimes he wished they were. They were scream worthy, or awe-worthy, or some combination of those two. There had been people who adored every part of him but his eyes, and, on the other side of the coin, there had been people who had come on to him only to see a half-human’s pupils turn into slits, as if Magnus, instead of performing the party tricks, was one himself. 

He looked at Alec, his own gaze just as hard, and smiled a toothy smile. “They are rather stunning, I suppose.” He blinked, but he did not let himself even for a moment look away. 

Alec, interestingly enough, didn’t either, despite the way he could barely meet Magnus’ brown eyes mere weeks ago, his head bowed under the weight of what he called honor. 

Magnus had stripped that from him, that honor. Or, more accurately, because of Magnus, Alec had stripped it from himself. Magnus had felt bad about it, just a little, despite not having an inkling of regret. He had whispered it into Alec’s neck late in the night as they were moving together for the un-tith time, and Alec had said, low and sure, that he was a man who could make his own decisions, and, knowing he was to loose something, chose for himself what was most worth keeping.

He said this in between kisses to Magnus’ lips, heavy enough to bruise in the corners, and Magnus had fallen just that bit further. And, even more, a respect grew deep within him, burning bright as Alec held him close and sure. 

Alec, his mouth soft from Magnus’, let his words fall more easily than he had before. “I guess.” The tone was disbelieving. 

Magnus’ brow wrinkled. 

Alec’s face immediately turned towards shameful. It made a weight settle heavy in the depth of Magnus’ throat. If there was one thing he hated more than anything on Alec Lightwood, it was that. 

Alec brought up a hand, hitting the air with the back of knuckles after everything he said. It was a tell, the way, when frustrated, he would bring that hand down on each phrase fighting for a way out of his mouth, as if that might make them somehow clearer. Usually, it didn’t, but Magnus was captured by the gesture anyway. It did well to know what a lover found important. 

“Shit, that probably sounded terrible.” He was more pissed than embarrassed, as if he had failed himself in some way. Magnus felt his grin grow smaller, the harsh whites of his teeth hiding back behind sore lips. Softer. 

Alec swallowed. “I only meant--not that they're not beautiful, or whatever.” He waved a hand, clearly stopping himself on the verge of another stuttering spree. “Just that--they’re like the rest of you, you know? They fit.” Alec grimaced, his hand coming up to rub at his eyes. “Damn, I’m not explaining this well.” 

In that moment, as Alec wrestled with himself, he missed the very clear look of adoration coming his way, Magnus’ face a study in vulnerability and reflection. 

He looked up to a kiss, which Magnus placed ever so gently on his lips. They were raw and red, the both of them, and the pressing together of mouths hurt, but neither cared. 

“I think it’s sweet.” Magnus kissed onto Alec’s tongue, although he kissed with such a strength behind it that ‘sweet’ was a sorely lacking description. Alec kissed back, leaving all those un-said, un-clear words into Magnus’ own mouth. 

Magnus wouldn't call Alec Lightwood revolutionary, but maybe, somewhere inside and on the cusp of something, a part of him was shifting in that direction.

When he pulled back, Magnus’ eyes, the slits a deep, dark black, were curved into happy little crescents.


	18. Falling Fast and Hard (For You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you have to loose, Magnus Bane?

If he was honest, he would own up to the fact that it's a little embarrassing.

Falling in love reminds him of a small farm, a mother and a father and a loved son, who became unloved. It reminds him of desperation, sweat, tears that linger on the edge of lenses but never fall, never fully release. The sound of a bird’s wing being broken. The quiet in the middle of a tornado’s eye, a piercing second of relief followed by destruction.

It is torture and pleasure all rolled up in one, and Magnus has always had strange tastes.

Alec is a gem, a diamond in the coalmine. Each day they spend together makes Magnus more and more glad that he showed, that he took that horrid moment of unknowing as Alec stood at the altar with wide, hungry eyes. Kissing him felt like everything, far too quickly. His lips left invisible burns across Magnus’ skin, and when he held gazes Magnus thought very seriously of falling to his knees.

Magnus didn’t have religion, and he didn’t have family, not like Alec. But lovers, oh. He had those.

Catarina would sometimes look at him with despair.

“Magnus,” She would say. “You have only just met them.”

And Magnus would deny, though he knew better, and Catarina would pretend to believe him, though she knew better as well.

Magnus tried. He hid his heart behind silk and ash, kept the buried memories of long ago pressed deep and far back into his chest. Yet the situation would continue to escape him. All or nothing for him, as much as he wishes it wasn’t.

Alec is smarter. He falls in degrees, a slow pace, step by step down into the thick of it. When his dad asked, voice surprising kind, if they were in love, he only laughed at the ridiculousness of the question.

“It’s new.” He said, grinning in his relaxation. In his newly freed body. He said it like that meant something, as if there was a set time one must go through before they could consider love. Oh, I’ve known you for a year, now I love you. Oh, we’ve had so many dates, now we are a We.

There was a sense to it that laid itself plain. Magnus admired it even as the words made him itch, like his heart was already much too full.

Others had called him flighty, and Magnus agreed with them.

There was a reason he hadn’t tried for something like this in so long. He had lived without it for years, and during that time he ached for it. He ached around the parties and the people in his bed and the drink in his hand that always seemed to be refilling itself. ‘I want something.’ He thought, his mind hazy late at night and early in the morning, the dark making it difficult to run. ‘I want.’

And now he had. Alec was here, his smile a bright, shining thing, his eyes a warm brown, and he suddenly realized that he very much had not thought this through. Raphael would be rolling his eyes.

There was a part of him that wanted to talk to Ragnor. He would be worse about it than Catarina, gruff in his advice, but sometimes that was what Magnus needed. Sometimes it hurt less than a kind voice. He pressed that part of himself down, laid it flat when it tried to rebel upwards. He didn't have that option anymore.

So his soul continued to jump as Alec looked at him over the rim of a glass, and Magnus breathed deep and let the wave rock through him.


	19. Let Me Be It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gold, perfume, me, you.

Alec is only just waking up when Magnus comes banging into the bedroom.

“What the fuck?” His mouth tastes like a dead thing and the sun is trying to burn out his sight. He wants to die.

“Don’t be like that.” Magnus says, brightly. He is dressed impeccably, a smartly layered jacket over shirt, his pants pressed smooth. Alec hates him. Alec loves him. Alec doesn’t want anyone else.

He pulls himself up, pressing his back against the headboard with effort. He registers this as mildly pathetic for a shadowhunter, but since it’s only Magnus here he doesn’t really care. “Did you not sleep at all?”

The area under Magnus’ eyes is clear and blends smoothly into the skin of his cheeks, but the whites around the pupils bleed redness. Alec bets that if he wandered into the bathroom a concealer wand would by lying uncapped by the sink.

“Question,” Magnus sits down on the mattress, the drop of his body creating waves in the bedspread. Alec grits his teeth and fights through the early morning nausea. “When did you decide that it was something you wanted? With me?”

Alec’s eyes fuzz with tiredness. “Are we doing this now?”

Magnus, quick as silver, lays himself down by Alec’s side. His ankle finds the dip in Alec’s and his hand carves out a space on Alec’s hip. Alec thinks that this is important, and he should be mad about Magnus bringing it up now or nervous about what he has to say.

But the canopy feathers reflect the light, and the sheets feel too good to move from, and Magnus is a perfect weight at his side. Bizarrely, it makes Alec think of that nursery story Clary mentioned once in passing. Not too big, not too small. Not too hot, not too cold.

Magnus sighs, the breath a flutter against Alec’s neck. Just right.

He falls asleep, and Magnus lets him.

\---

“No one ever wanted to, before.”

Alec smiles, his teeth gaping. A snort hovers in his nostrils. “What?”

Magnus’ eyes--how do glamoured irises on him show more than the stripped down realness of a shadowhunter’s glare?--only look at him, there. Careful, careful.

“Someone must have--” Because someone must have.

Magnus’ eyes flicker.

“I don't--” Believe you?

No. Believe them.

“I want to.” Alec says. Words confuse him more than not, but these seem so obvious, so completely and fully formed, that he can't imagine fumbling them. They release like river water over rock, an easy flow.

Magnus presses a hard kiss into the side of his jaw.

Under the sheets, with certain hands, they smooth each other out.

\---

Alec saw his future in front of him. It stared back ever since the golden death of a demon decapitated. His first. Jace jokingly referred to it as ‘popping the cherry’. When his turn came, he didn't refer to it as anything at all.

Sometimes, it was so close he could touch it, taste it like salt on the back of his tongue. Head of the institute, a wedding rune, a woman. Children, most likely, though he'd rather not consider how he would obtain those.

A pat on the back from his father. A smile for him from his mother.

That was then. This is now.

Now, he does not see anything staring back at him. The future is not dark or bright, because Alec can't catch its gaze anymore. It is always wavering, churning. Nothing is sacred. He can't taste anything but the here and now: Magnus’ open mouth, a magic drink that tangs, blood from an injury that had Isabelle staring at him wrong for days.

In some ways, it is worse. But Alec would never want to go back.

\---

Magnus is solid where nothing else is, living outside of Alec’s hazy perception. This is surprising until it isn't.

Magnus: airy and ethereal, lightning out of a bottle, a wave drowning the sand only to return to the sea, perfectly unharmed. Perfectly the same. Magnus: the kind of guy who blinks in and out, waves a hand over your face and puts you under only to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Magnus appears to be. Magnus seems to be.

If Alec still thought this, then he would be doing both of them a disservice. He knows better now, because Magnus is complex feelings that don't manifest easily, in shouting or in fits. They curl around Alec in technicolor, textures constantly shifting. They force Alec to try harder, to look under things and over them, past horizons that seem to stop where sky meets grass, make him realize that people go on forever and forever, including himself. Some just like to appear a little mysterious.

Something else he finds: The way Magnus loves is breathtaking. Alec could love a hundred thousand different others, and he could love them well, but Magnus--his cutting tongue, his blinking eyes, his insomniac nights of spells and potions and his hips and ass and chest and neck and soul that glows heavy like a well-worn lantern, never going out despite all the people who try to snuff him--

This is the love Alec chooses.

This is the man Alec wants in his uncertain future, and he doesn't expect it to be easy but he steps up and bows, like a person taking on a mission.

I want that rune. He thinks, and a piece of the future comes so close that Alec thinks he can taste it.

It tastes like the burn of alcohol at the back of your throat, like the hidden indulgence of dark chocolate. Like rainy days and sunny days, frostbite and heat. It tastes sour and it tastes sweet. Part of it is impossible to put into words, but that doesn't mean he doesn't like it just as well. Just right.

It tastes just like Magnus.

\---

“Do you want it?” Alec asks.

“I'm not a shadowhunter.” Magnus replies.

This is clear. This is obvious. Magnus does not have runes; he is fragile in his speed and strength. He eyes glow, bright, unnaturally-- No. Naturally but extraordinarily when he casts a spell.

Alec looks under, peals back the flaps. “So what? You think all shadowhunters want it?”

“Most of you do seem to at young age. Children soon after. Close-knit families throughout the generations.” Nothing like me.

“Do you want it?” Alec asks. He still doesn't know about children himself, but the idea of them no longer seems hard to swallow. Sex is not a prerequisite. A kid scrappy and mean on the outside and soft in the center, someone abandoned or unwanted by the people who bore them. Alec thinks he and Magnus could handle a kid like that better than anyone else.

Magnus turns his head. His eyes flicker. “I'll never live up to the vow.” I'll never die.

Til death do us part.

A pain presses its little feet all over Alec’s heart, walks across it from top to bottom. A mortal and an immortal. The knowledge that Magnus will continue where Alec cannot follow, will love and love and love again. Will forget his face and his voice, even.

“So what?”

Magnus stares. “Alec--”

“So what? You think we don't get to have this? Fuck that.”

Because it's going to hurt, Magnus’ immortality. It's always going to hurt. The way it hurts changes, shifts, doesn't hold itself in place so that Alec can spear it. He thought he was losing a battle every time it came up, twisting it's beastly head, shooting arrows into what turned out to be Magnus’ skin. Now he gets that it's impossible to kill, but he'd only really be losing anything if he let it keep him from the warmth of Magnus.

He thinks he wants to be the one. The one who embraces it when all the others fled.

Loving Magnus is the job of a warrior.

“I've been with you for years. I get it. I'm in it for as long as you'll have me.” Alec swallows around the pieces of himself, chokes as they fight their way up his throat and out his mouth.

“So you can't give me forever. So what? I can't even give you the length of your life. If one of us is getting the raw end of the deal here, it's you.”

Magnus is shaking his head, a small side to side twitch. “You’ve given me so much Alec.” He says. His soul is crumbling. Alec can see it in the ways he moves and in the cadence of his voice. “You've given me more than I could have thought to ask for. You have reminded me how to feel.”

Joy, happiness, passion, love, euphoria.

Sadness, heartbreak, anger, uncertainty--

Loss.

You can't have one without the other. Alec is learning. Magnus has learned over and over again. And still they love.

“Then marry me.”

\---

On a golden day in June, Alexander Lightwood takes Magnus’ Bane’s hand.


End file.
